


Burned Retinas

by blindmasks



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Levi is uncooperative, M/M, Medical Procedures, Pain, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stitches, Suicidal Thoughts, despite the title there are no eye injuries, it's fairly mild though, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22126942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmasks/pseuds/blindmasks
Summary: When a soldier comes rushing up to tell Erwin that Levi's been injured and Squad Leader Hange has requested that he come immediately, urgently, the worst case scenarios start flooding Erwin's head, images of Levi lying broken and dying, bleeding out or with missing limbs.So Erwin is very confused when he arrives and Levi is not dying, not gravely injured, but standing up against a tree, covered in blood, a murderous look in his eyes, waving his blades around and threatening any medic that tries to come near him, pointing the weapons at Hange. “Get the fuck back Four-eyes or I’ll slice those shitty glasses off your face,” Levi says.Or, Levi has a bit of a phobia, and Erwin and Hange find out in a not so ideal way.
Relationships: Hange Zoë & Levi, Hange Zoë & Levi & Erwin Smith, Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 67
Kudos: 540





	1. Slice

**Author's Note:**

> So this is, once again, a piece I originally wrote as part of my work Splinter, but the backstory contradicts a detail in the first chapter and also there are only so many traumatic events I can fit into one story.

It doesn’t take Erwin long to realize that Levi is wary around fire. And it’s not that Levi is even afraid – he never looks panicked or anxious – he’s just very cautious. He keeps his distance from any open flames, and he’s very, very careful when cooking or making tea. Erwin thinks it’s probably not that noticeable to most people, but Erwin has always been very perceptive, and he has always been particularly fascinated with Levi.

It also does not take Erwin long to realize that Levi does not like being treated medically. Or more to the point, he refuses to let anyone treat him. Erwin’s not really surprised by that – he’s too guarded and careful, and clearly doesn’t want to be vulnerable in front of anyone.

It takes much longer for Erwin to realize that the two are connected.

It’s about a year and a half after Isabel and Furlan die, and Levi gets injured badly for the first time. He’s come back with scrapes and bruises, had even twisted his ankle once, but it’s the first time he’s seriously injured. Levi swings up to cut a soldier out of a titan’s hand, and the soldier accidentally slices Levi up the side in the process.

Erwin doesn’t see it. They’ve stopped in a large forest to treat the injured and get a vantage point to figure out what direction to continue in. Erwin’s on his way up to the highest point he can get when a soldier comes and interrupts him.

“Commander, sir,” the woman says. Erwin turns to her. “It’s Captain Levi, sir,” she says. “He’s injured, but he… Squad Leader Hange said to get you, sir.”

Erwin frowns and nods. He follows after her. He has the worst case scenarios playing in his mind, walking quickly, but when they reach the scene, Erwin just stands there, dumbfounded for a second.

Levi is backed up against a tree, one arm wrapped around his midsection, the other with his sword drawn, pointed outwards threateningly. He is covered in blood, most of it appearing to be coming from where he has his arm wrapped around his side. He’s scowling murderously, a wild look in his eyes. It takes Erwin a few moments to realize that it is not primarily rage, but fear.

Two medics are waiting a few meters back. Hange is the only one willing to get closer than that, and even she is left several feet away from Levi, who swings the blade threateningly again.

“Get the fuck back Four-eyes or I’ll slice those shitty glasses off your face,” Levi says.

“Levi,” Erwin says, striding forward. When he gets close, Levi’s eyes flick to him, and he points the blade towards Erwin instead.

“Stay the fuck away,” Levi says.

“Levi, what is the matter with you?” Erwin says. He ignores the threat and steps closer. Levi leans back against the tree and his eyes widen a little. He tips the blade up, angling at Erwin’s face. “What is going on?” Erwin says.

“ _Stay back_ ,” Levi says.

Erwin can see the panic clearly now, and he looks down at where Levi is holding his side. Blood is seeping around his fingers.

“You’re hurt,” Erwin says. “Come let a medic look at you, you need to be seen to.”

“Fuck off,” Levi says.

Erwin just stares at him for a moment. “Levi, I know you don’t like having your wounds treated, but this is non-negotiable, you are clearly very injured, you need to let someone look at that.”

Levi takes a step forward so suddenly that Erwin stumbles back. Levi thrusts the sword forward at his shoulder. He misses by a wide margin as Erwin easily dodges it, but Erwin doesn’t think that Levi actually meant to hit him. He leans back against the tree again just a moment later. It was clearly just meant to scare him, and Erwin narrows his eyes.

He moves towards Levi. Levi’s eyes widen again for a moment, before he cuts with the blade again – a short motion. It forces Erwin to move slightly to the side, nothing more. When Levi raises the sword against him again, Erwin doesn’t move aside. He raises an arm against the sword and walks directly into the blow.

Levi flips the sword so the flat of the blade hits Erwin’s forearm instead, and then pushes against it. Even weakened from his injury, he’s still strong. Erwin presses his weight into leaning against the sword, and then reaches for Levi’s hand, the hand holding the blade, with his free hand.

In a second, Erwin twists under the blade, yanking it away by the handle. Levi lets out a startled noise, and then Erwin presses down on the underside of Levi’s wrist and manages to yank the handle from his fingers.

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Levi says. He twists to get away but Erwin uses his weight to push him down. It’s a testament to how injured Levi is that Erwin is even able to do that. He looks over his shoulder as Levi continues to swear at him, now pushed to a kneeling position.

“Hange, grab a kit, you two, go help the other wounded,” Erwin says.

The two medics respond with a “yes sir!” and Erwin turns back to Levi, who is still struggling.

“Relax,” Erwin says. “You’ll make yourself pass out at this rate.”

“Fucking bastard,” Levi says. “Get your shitty hands off me!”

“ _Calm down_ ,” Erwin says. “You are injured and you need treatment. Do you want to die of blood loss?”

Levi says nothing else but the panicked, enraged look doesn’t leave his face. He keeps one arm wrapped around his side, and he moves to curl protectively around it, angling it away from Erwin and up against the tree. Erwin has his other wrist gripped in his hand.

When Hange drops to his side with a med kit Levi flinches, turning even more towards the tree, bringing his knees up. His attention moves from Erwin to Hange.

“Fuck off,” he says, before she can even try to get at the wound.

“You’re still bleeding,” Hange says. She waits, and her voice is unusually calm. “I need to stop the bleeding, Levi.”

Levi goes stiff. Erwin braces for another round of struggling, but instead Levi’s eyes dart around behind them, so much so that Erwin chances a look back. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary, just their carts and the medics helping other soldiers.

“Just give me the shitty bandages then,” Levi says.

“Levi, let Hange help you,” Erwin says.

Levi doesn’t move, just looks back and forth between Hange and Erwin, looking like he’s ready to kill either of them, completely tense. Erwin waits a moment, and then he starts to pull Levi away from the tree, one hand on his wrist, the other on his shoulder, trying to pull him down so he’s forced to lie flat on the ground rather than curled against the tree.

Levi surprises him. In one motion, he leans forward, going towards Erwin, while also yanking his wrist back. The result is that his mouth gets very close to Erwin’s arm. Levi bites him.

“ _Damnit_ ,” Erwin says, jerking his arm away. “Levi!”

All it takes is that one moment though. Levi rolls onto his back and kicks Hange with both feet, then aims an elbow at Erwin’s jaw while pushing himself to his feet. None of the blows land hard, but they do land.

Levi staggers once he’s upright though, and he pales suddenly, throwing out a hand against the tree for balance. Erwin is up again in a moment. This time he grabs both of Levi’s wrists, pulling Levi’s hand away from his side, and jerks him away from the tree. He pulls him a couple steps away and then again pushes him to the ground, onto his back this time, pinning his wrists. Hange moves to his other side quickly and pushes up his shirt before he can fight more.

Levi swears at them, but his fighting’s gone weak, and then all at once the anger and fight slips completely from his eyes, and they go stark with fear. Hange wipes blood from his side with a cloth and Levi looks sharply away, squeezing his eyes shut suddenly and trying to curl towards Erwin, away from Hange.

“Relax,” Erwin says.

Levi starts trembling. He’s completely tense, teeth clenched, eyes shut, as Hange cleans away blood. He looks for all the world like a cornered, terrified animal – a feral one at that. A bit more blood trickles and oozes out as Hange cleans it, but his skin clears enough to reveal a jagged, deep wound running nearly from his hip to halfway up his ribs.

Hange silently takes a water skin out to wash the wound more thoroughly. Levi flinches as she does. His hands continue clenching and unclenching where Erwin has them pinned. He breathes harshly and Erwin watches his chest rise and fall shakily with it.

Hange pulls out a sutures kit. “It can’t wait,” she says, an answer to the question Erwin’s about to ask. He nods instead.

Levi opens his eyes. They dart around, but he doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t look at either Hange or Erwin.

Hange threads the needle and Erwin transfers Levi’s wrists into one of his hands so that he can use the other to press down on Levi’s hip to keep him steady. Levi tenses up when he does, and he takes in a few rapid, shallow breaths.

“Easy,” Erwin says. When Hange first inserts the needle Levi flinches and tenses again. He lets out a noise like the breath has just been punched out of him.

After that he’s silent except for the ragged, overly fast breathing. Hange works quickly, tools moving meticulously, and Erwin’s grip on Levi’s wrists loosens a bit. Levi keeps pushing against the hold, but it’s in fits and bursts, and it seems more out of tension and pain than a real attempt to get away. Erwin keeps his hand firmly planted on Levi’s hip though. Levi’s not really trying to move away there either, but he flinches frequently.

It’s a long cut and it takes a while. None of them say anything throughout it. Hange works and Levi breathes raggedly. He’s clearly in a lot of pain, but both the anger and the fear has drained from his expression. Erwin’s not sure if it’s because Levi has managed to calm down from whatever it was that had gotten him so worked up, or if it’s just that pain and exhaustion have taken over.

Hange doesn’t give him a warning before she douses the wound in alcohol to sterilize it. It’s probably meant to be a mercy – to do it before he realizes what’s coming and the amount of pain he’s about to be in, and Erwin doesn’t make any move to inform him, but the result is unexpected.

The second the alcohol touches him, Levi screams and bucks, and suddenly all that fight from before is back. Levi rips his arms from Erwin’s hold, punches Hange in the jaw, and literally rolls on top of and over Erwin, scrambling away.

“Levi!” Erwin says, rising on his knees. Hange lets out a short yell, falling backwards, one hand going to her jaw.

Erwin’s about to get to his feet, but he stops when he realizes that Levi hasn’t stood up. He’s stopped moving only a couple of feet away. He’s still on his knees, doubled over, arm wrapped around his midsection again, gagging.

“What the hell, Levi,” Erwin says, concern taking over as Levi coughs up bile, bracing his free hand against the ground. He doesn’t move away when Erwin goes towards him. Levi coughs some more, and then gasps. His shoulders shake. Erwin puts a hand against Levi’s back.

“Why the fuck,” Levi says between ragged breaths, “wouldn’t… you _tell_ me?” Erwin sees Levi’s fingers tighten against his side, going white. “ _Fuck_.”

“Tell you…?” Erwin says.

Levi reaches up to shove Erwin back, but it’s weak and Erwin merely rocks back for a moment. “The fucking alcohol,” Levi says. “Bastard.” Levi pulls his hand away from his side and looks at it. His palm is wet with fresh blood. “ _Shit_ ,” Levi says.

“You’ve torn the stitches,” Erwin says. He sighs and looks back at Hange. She grimaces at him. Erwin looks back at Levi and puts his other hand on Levi’s shoulder, pushing gently. “Lie down again.”

“Fuck off,” Levi says, moving his shoulder to shake Erwin’s hand off. He leans back a little though to get a look at his side. “ _Shit_ ,” he says again. Erwin looks as well.

He hasn’t managed to tear all the stitches. It’s actually only a fairly small section. Still, it’s going to be even more painful the second time around.

“Hange needs to redo the stitches,” Erwin says as Levi tenses up again.

“Like hell,” Levi says, but it comes out mumbled.

“Lie down,” Erwin says as Hange reaches them.

Levi turns away from him, and he looks like he’s going to argue or get up for a second, but then he lies down on his back again. This time he throws up one arm, covering his face. He balls the other to a fist over his stomach, near the wound.

Hange carefully snips off the torn stitches and readies a new needle. Levi tenses and his knees bend when she starts. His hand on his stomach inches closer to the wound like he’s going to grab her hand, but he doesn’t. He flinches though, and after a minute Erwin presses down on his hip again to keep him still.

The movement startles him, and Levi suddenly grabs Erwin’s wrist, fingernails biting into his skin so hard that Erwin gasps. Levi lets go again before he can say anything though. Levi lets out a shudder instead and turns his face, still hidden by his arm, away from Hange and the wound.

Levi shakes, and he starts squirming, moving his feet and head and arms – small, jerky movements, at the pain. By the end he’s started letting out small, growled hisses of pain. Hange finishes and puts the tools down, and then picks up the small bottle of rubbing alcohol again and looks at Erwin.

“Levi, Hange has to sterilize it again,” Erwin says.

Levi moves his arm away from his face for the first time since they started, and Erwin gets a look at him. He’s very pale, and he tenses as soon as Erwin says it, looking down at the stitches and Hange, where she’s pouring some of the alcohol onto a small bit of cloth.

Levi’s jaw tightens and Erwin sees a quick swell of fear and dread over his face before it’s blank again. Levi drops his head back down to the earth and covers his face with his arm again with a single, fast nod. Erwin takes Levi’s balled up fist in his own hand just as Hange wipes the wound with alcohol.

Levi lets out a cut off yell and bucks again. Erwin presses on his hip and holds his wrist back. He settles quickly this time though, panting and trembling, but going still, and Erwin lets go of him.

He sits up afterwards and allows Hange to wrap up his side with tight bandages. Erwin tells him to ride in a wagon for the rest of the way with the other wounded. Someone will take his horse.

They finish the mission and once back Erwin has to make a report. When he’s finished he goes to find Levi. He checks medical first but is not surprised at all to find he’s not there. He goes to his room and knocks. He hears a grunt from inside and opens the door.

Levi’s sitting at his desk, writing something, probably a report of his own. His hair is damp and he’s dressed in casual clothing. There’s an empty cup of tea on his desk. He looks up as Erwin enters.

“How are you feeling?” Erwin says.

“Fine,” Levi says. His expression is blank, unreadable.

“I need to know what happened today,” Erwin says.

There’s no point dancing around it and Erwin knows Levi knows exactly why he’s there anyway. Levi’s expression doesn’t change at all but he shifts so he’s facing Erwin more directly, an invitation.

“I know you don’t like being treated for injuries, but if Hange and I hadn’t been there you would have let yourself bleed out,” Erwin says. “There’s no guarantee we’ll always be there.”

“Is there something you want from me, Erwin?” Levi says.

Erwin pushes down the rush of irritation. He reminds himself that Levi had been scared, not obstinate. Despite what Levi might think, he’s not there to lecture him.

“I want to know what happened, so that we can avoid you needlessly dying in the future,” Erwin says.

Levi looks at him for a long moment. His expression still doesn’t change, but he takes in a breath just a beat longer than normal. “I don’t do well with cuts,” he says.

“Cuts?” Erwin says.

“Yes,” Levi says. “If it were a break or something torn or dislocated, it would not be a problem.”

“You’re afraid of needles?” Erwin says. It’s not a terribly uncommon fear. He knows many soldiers who have tried to get out of stitches and vaccinations. Mike nearly faints every time he has to have a cut sewn up.

“No,” Levi says.

“Why cuts then?”

Levi looks at him for another long moment. His gaze is almost calculating, a long, hard stare. Then he sighs and stands up. He starts unbuckling his belt.

Erwin’s brow furrows in utter confusion as Levi removes his belt and then pushes his pants down before stepping out of them. Erwin has never actually seen Levi without pants on, and his attention is very quickly drawn to a gruesome scar on his right thigh. The skin is raised in a thick, knotted line, shiny and red.

“I got stabbed and it hit an artery,” Levi says. “Furlan cauterized it.”

It’s a burn, Erwin realizes with a sick turn of his stomach. He knows it is generally much more dangerous to cauterize wounds rather than stitching them, but if he was really going to bleed out and there was no other way to stop the bleeding in time, then it could have been necessary.

“I know it’s irrational but every time I get cut, I’m afraid someone’s going to burn me again,” Levi says. His voice is even but quiet. He pauses for a second. “When I felt the alcohol the first time, I thought you were burning me.”

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Erwin says.

Something flits in Levi’s expression but Erwin can’t pinpoint it. Levi stares back at him for another moment before he finally looks away, at the wall. His hands clench for a second but Erwin catches the movement.

“It’s the only reason I’m alive, but it hurt like absolute hell and there were five people holding me down. It was terrifying,” Levi says.

Levi can’t help the shiver that runs through his body. He remembers the feeling vividly. It had been a turf war, back when Furlan was still with his gang, and Levi wasn’t an official member but he hung around them a lot and he lived with Furlan inside that sector. He was fifteen. He’d gotten stabbed in the thigh late in the fight, and there had been _so much blood_. He’d barely even felt the pain from the stabbing after that – he was bleeding so heavily and it scared the shit out of him.

Really, he’d been incredibly lucky. The fight had been ending and there was a hideout nearby with a fireplace in it. They helped him back to it and dumped him on a bed inside. There were so many faces around him and he was dizzy from blood loss and panic.

“It’s too deep, he’s bleeding too fast,” one of the guys said.

Levi didn’t process much beyond the voices and the blood, the hands on his leg, and then someone was grabbing his arm, and there were hands on his shoulders and hips, and Levi looked up and saw someone with a burning poker, and he realized all at once what was about to happen.

“No,” he said. He started struggling, pulling away, a visceral, overwhelming panic flooding through him. “No, no,” he said, trying to get up.

“Only take a second,” someone said.

“Gotta happen. Only way to stop the bleeding.”

“Stay down now.”

“Fuck no,” Levi said. He fought. They wrestled him down, hands all over him, bearing down until he couldn’t move. “No, fuck off, get the fuck off me!” he said.

“It’s okay,” Furlan said, his face appearing. Levi’s throat was tight, chest tight, he couldn’t move and his vision had tunneled in, was spotting in and out. “It’s alright, Levi, you’re gonna be fine,” he said.

“Fuck you,” Levi said. “Furlan, get them the fuck off me before I fucking kill all of you.”

“It’s okay,” Furlan said again, and then he looked away and Levi followed his gaze.

Levi didn’t even see who had the poker, didn’t register the body moving towards him, just the glowing orange tip. His body went cold and he thrashed, screaming.

“ _No_ , no!” he said. “Stop! Fuck, lemmee go.”

“Steady,” the guy with the poker said.

In a last bolt of panic, Levi struggled and turned desperately. “ _Furlan_ ,” he said, voice cracking.

He felt someone take his hand and then there was blinding, agonizing pain.

He passed out. And when he woke up he’d still been in an agonizing amount of pain. For the next month his leg hurt steadily. He dreaded changing the bandages, and he cried the first couple times he had to, it was so painful.

“Is there anything I can do to make it easier?” Erwin says. “If you get badly cut again?”

Levi shrugs. He hesitates, and then looks over, at the wall again. “Don’t hold me down,” he says quietly.

“I’ll try,” Erwin says. “You didn’t really give us much choice this time.”

Levi tenses. “You didn’t need to keep doing it, you could have let go after Shitty Glasses started stitching it.”

“I’m sorry,” Erwin says.

“You could have given me a fucking minute before you shoved me to the ground,” Levi mumbles.

Erwin feels a pang of guilt and concern. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “You’d already lost a lot of blood.”

“Just… give me a minute next time,” Levi says.

“Okay,” Erwin says, “I will.”


	2. Jagged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi gets injured again. Erwin knows better this time, but he's still learning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one, but I figured I'd post it rather than wait until I had more.

The next time Levi needs stitches is almost a year later, and Erwin is, once again, informed by someone else that Levi has been hurt, this time by one of Levi’s concerned members of his squad. They get back inside the wall and instead of going to make his report, Erwin searches for Levi. He finds him outside the stables, alone, muttering and swearing to himself as he tries to wash his wounds and bandage himself up.

“Levi,” Erwin says.

Levi’s head jerks upwards and his eyes are already wide with fear. He hides his arm under his cloak, going stiff.

“Let’s go see a medic,” Erwin says.

Levi’s teeth clench, he stares back at Erwin, and then he gives one shake of his head.

“You need to be seen to,” Erwin says. “Levi, I promise no one is going to burn you,” he says, forcing his tone as gentle as possible.

“Don’t fucking mock me,” Levi says, expression going tight with sudden anger. “I fucking know that, I told you I know that.”

“I’m not trying to mock you,” Erwin says. “I just thought the reassurance might help.”

Erwin takes two steps forward, and Levi stands from where he was sitting on a crate, backing up against the wall of the stable.

“Relax,” Erwin says, but he stops where he is, taking in Levi’s defensive stance, the suspicious, fearful look in his eyes. “Levi, you need to see a medic. I’m assuming you’ve gotten cut somewhere? One of your squad mentioned an injury to your arm. You need to be seen to, get stitches if necessary.”

“It’s fine,” Levi says. “I’m taking care of it.”

“I can get Hange if that makes you more comfortable,” Erwin says.

Levi doesn’t move, just keeps looking at Erwin with that same mix of fear, distrust, and reflexive anger.

“If you don’t have it treated properly it’s much more likely to get infected,” Erwin says, “and that will be not only more dangerous but much more unpleasant to treat.” Levi’s mouth goes into a tight line. “Let’s go see a medic,” Erwin says again.

Again, Levi gives one tense, jerky shake of his head. “No,” he says, voice coming out equally as tense.

“Levi, you have to do this,” Erwin says. “We can do it however will make you most comfortable but you have to do it.” After a moment Erwin again approaches him. This time Levi just tenses some more and watches him, until Erwin stops again. “Let’s go see a medic,” he says softly.

Levi stares back at him, jaw clenched tightly. “Hange,” he says. His voice is quiet, the name coming out almost as a hiss.

“Okay,” Erwin says. “She should be in her office right now.”

They go to Hange’s office. Levi is stiff and tense the whole time, but he walks quickly. When they get there, Hange sees the bloody bandages around Levi’s arm and the bloodstains on his shirt, jacket, and cloak, and thankfully catches on very quickly. Her mouth purses to a line. “I’ll grab my medkit,” she says. She then clears off her desk by unceremoniously sweeping the clutter to a corner of it with her arm. She pulls out the chair and gestures with a bright smile.

Levi huffs, but sits down. Erwin finds another chair, this one with books stacked on the seat, and clears that, carefully placing them on the ground, and pulls it over to Levi’s side.

Levi’s fingers twitch. Hange pulls over another chair, places it across from them, and opens the medkit. She gets water and a rag and takes out a sutures kit.

Erwin turns to see Levi looking down, hands in his lap, cloak shrouding his arms.

“Can I see, Levi?” she says.

Levi doesn’t move. Erwin feels his stomach sink, feels himself start to tense up as well. Then Levi shakes his head, again, jerky, but faster this time.

“What can I do, Levi?” Hange says.

Her voice is uncharacteristically soft and gentle, serious. It sounds odd coming from her and yet Erwin is not surprised. She may be oblivious at times, but it’s pretty clear Levi’s afraid of being treated, and Hange isn’t one to belittle or brush off other people’s fears.

“She’s not going to hurt you,” Erwin says, when Levi doesn’t respond. “You’re alright. Let Hange take a look.”

He gives another sharp shake of his head, face still tilted down.

Erwin reaches over to put a hand on Levi’s back. He only means to try to offer some reassurance, some comfort, but Levi flinches back violently before he even reaches him.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Levi says, standing abruptly, chair scraping against the floor, up lightning fast.

Erwin puts his hands up. “Okay,” he says, “okay, I’m sorry, Levi, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re not holding me down this time, okay? Fucking got it?” Levi says. He looks terrified suddenly, hands shaking, reaching for the gear that isn’t there. “I’m not about to pass out this time, I won’t let you hold me down.”

Erwin stills. “I won’t hold you down,” he says, as calmly as he can. “I promise I won’t try to hold you down.”

Levi looks at him with clear suspicion. Erwin feels a dull pang of hurt – he thought Levi trusted him more than this by now, but he has to tell himself that Levi’s fear isn’t rational, that he’s scared and Erwin _did_ hold him down last time.

“Levi,” Hange says. “Let me take a look. Just a look, alright?”

Levi moves back to his chair slowly. He sits down, and then he resumes looking downwards. After a few long moments he starts to unwrap his bandages.

He grimaces as he goes, and moves very slowly. When he’s left with a pile of bloody bandages in his hands he pauses and glances up. Very slowly, he raises his arm and puts it on the desk, where Hange can see. He keeps it close to him still, so she has to lean over to get a good look.

His arm is covered in drying blood, but there’s a large gash from wrist to elbow curving up his forearm.

“I’m going to clean it with some soap and water,” she says.

Levi’s mouth tightens to a thin line, teeth clenching. As Hange brings a small cloth to his arm, taking his wrist gently in one hand, he flinches. His hand starts shaking as she cleans it.

“You’re alright,” Erwin says.

She cleans slowly, gently. When she finishes she sets the water and rag aside. “I need to put the stitches in now,” she says.

Levi stays perfectly still, besides the trembling. She takes his wrist again and gently pulls it a little closer towards her.

Levi watches her ready the needle, and he watches her take his wrist, and then right as the needle pierces his skin, he looks away. He turns towards the wall, away from Erwin, with his eyes shut, head tilted down.

His breathing evens out and the trembling slows as Hange works. He’s not really afraid of stitches, or of the pain, Erwin’s gathered. Erwin thinks it probably makes him a little nervous, but like last time, as Hange continues, Levi settles into it, calms down a bit after the initial sharp shock of the needle and the pulling at his skin.

“Okay,” Hange says when she’s finished. “I need to disinfect it now.”

Levi tenses up and looks back quickly, eyes wide and watching as Hange wets a piece of clean gauze with rubbing alcohol. Erwin doesn’t try to touch Levi again, though he feels the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder or take his hand. Just as Hange goes to take his wrist again, Levi snatches it away.

He holds it protectively in at his side, head tilted down, breathing raggedly. His shoulders tremble and he shakes his head.

“Levi, let Hange see,” Erwin says after a moment. “It’s just the alcohol, nothing more.”

Levi shakes his head again in a sharp, rapid motion. Erwin can hear his breathing, shallow and fast.

“Come on now,” Erwin says gently, “you can watch her do it. It’s only the alcohol. It’ll only last a second.”

“It feels like –” Levi says, but cuts himself off, giving another shake of his head.

“But it’s not,” Erwin says. “The pain will only last a second, and then we can get it wrapped up and over with for you.”

Levi is silent for a moment, and then he places his hand back up on the desk, looking up as he does so.

“Let me see your other hand,” Erwin says, and to his surprise Levi raises it, and then grips tightly when Erwin reaches for it. “It’s alright,” Erwin says.

Hange takes Levi’s wrist, and Levi shudders, and then she wipes down his arm with the gauze.

Levi tenses completely and lets out a strangled yell. He grips Erwin’s hand so tight that he winces at the pain. Levi’s breathing goes even faster, gets loud and rapid and it sounds like he’s suffocating. Erwin puts his other hand on Levi’s back and starts rubbing up and down, frowning.

“It’s alright, it’s over, it’s all done,” Erwin says, as Levi snatches his arm back again, pulling it in towards his chest, hunched over. “Breathe,” Erwin says. “It was just the alcohol. You’re okay. You’re fine, it’s alright.”

It takes Levi a minute to calm down again, to shakily offer his arm again for Hange to wrap. When she’s done, he bolts.

Erwin finds him in his room again. He knocks. Levi grunts from inside. Erwin opens the door.

He’s taken a shower or a bath and is in new clothes. His old ones will be fairly ruined from the blood. He’s sitting in a chair with a book open this time, once again much calmer than earlier. It’s actually a little shocking to see him so put together – it’s only about a half hour later. Erwin’s brought tea with him this time. He holds out a cup and Levi puts his book down to take it.

“Are you feeling better now?” Erwin says.

“Mm,” Levi says, taking a sip of the tea.

“I’m sorry for last time,” Erwin says. “I didn’t realize being restrained was such a panic inducing event for you.”

Levi shrugs.

“This time seemed more difficult,” Erwin says. Sure, Levi wasn’t actively fighting them this time, but he seemed more scared, seemed to struggle with it more. Or maybe that’s just how he acted when he couldn’t cover it up with violence.

Levi pauses before he speaks. “Had more time to think about it.” When Erwin frowns at him he just shrugs again. “Sometimes it’s just worse.”

His voice is flat and the look on his face is so blank, apathetic, and it is such a sharp contrast to the uncontrolled, panicked rage he’d shown not an hour earlier when he though Erwin was going to hold him down. Erwin frowns. “You seem very calm now,” he says.

“You’re not treating the cut now,” Levi says.

“It’s alright if you’re still anxious,” Erwin says. “I know that was very difficult for you.”

“I’m fine now,” Levi says.

Erwin looks at him for another long moment. His expression is blank but his eyes are sharp, and there’s a tension to his shoulders. He’s sitting almost stiffly. “I don’t believe you,” Erwin says.

Levi frowns at him at that, an irritated look now. “Not my problem.”

“All the same,” Erwin says, “if you ever want to talk about what happened, or you’d just like some company, I’m always here. You know where to find me.”

“Hm,” Levi says.


	3. Scorch

Erwin learns, and it appears Levi learns as well, that cuts are not in fact the only injuries that Levi has trouble letting people treat him for. He is also, as it turns out, terrified of having burns treated.

It’s not a very bad burn, but it’s not small, a blotch that takes up a good part of his right shoulder blade. He burns it in a training accident, saving a new recruit whose gear malfunctions. There’s a small explosion and resulting fire, and Levi’s jacket and shirt catch.

“Motherfucker, fucking flaming _shit_ ,” Levi says. He lets out a continuous string of curses, ripping off his jacket and shirt, shoulders tensed, neck turned to try to get a look at it. “ _Fuck!_ ” The fire itself goes out as he tears the clothing off.

“Captain Levi!” someone says. Erwin sees the scene from a ways away and immediately starts running over, as several other soldiers do.

“Water, _fucking water_ ,” Levi says, holding out one hand. His neck strains and his eyes shut tightly, teeth gritted against the pain.

Someone hands it to him and Levi’s fingers shake as he tips it over his shoulder. Erwin sees his body relax slightly as it touches his skin, Levi’s breathing calming for half a second.

“Medic!” Erwin yells but someone is already rushing over to them. The soldier who Levi saved has also been hurt, though it looks like he’s been cut by some flying shrapnel, not burned, and he’s not yelling, just grimacing and clutching his side, so Erwin assumes he’s okay.

Levi’s head snaps around as the medic reaches him and his eyes go wide.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Levi says, taking a quick step back. “Back the fuck up.”

The medic freezes, confusion taking over. “Captain Levi, I need to –”

“Fuck off!” Levi says.

“Gauze,” Erwin says to the medic as he reaches him. “Give me a packet of gauze and some water, we’ll deal with the rest back at base.”

The medic quickly opens his kit and hands Erwin the gauze. Someone else hands him water. He turns towards Levi.

He looks absolutely terrified, clearly in a lot of pain, gripping his arm near his shoulder, his other hand up, out, as if to block him.

Erwin holds up the gauze and water skin. “For the pain,” he says, “just for the pain.”

Levi pauses. He lets Erwin approach, and up close Erwin can see how badly he’s trembling, can hear his shallow breathing. He’s incredibly pale.

“Don’t touch it,” Levi says, “it fucking hurts.”

“I know,” Erwin says. “I’m only going to put the gauze over it, and wet it, to keep it cool. It’ll help with the pain.”

“Don’t touch it,” Levi says again.

“I won’t touch,” Erwin says.

Levi turns slowly. His breathing ramps up and Erwin can see the tension in his neck and shoulders. He looks primed to run at any moment. Erwin wets the gauze, and then as gently as he can, lays it over Levi’s shoulder blade. Levi flinches, but doesn’t bolt. Afterwards, he pours more water over the gauze. Levi turns back, and Erwin hands the water skin to him.

“Drink,” he says, and Levi does. “Hold on to that,” Erwin says. “If it starts drying out you can wet it some more. We’ll walk back to the base. I’ll send someone ahead to get Hange.”

They walk. Levi seems to calm down at least slightly. He still walks stiffly, adds water to the gauze a couple of times. When they get back Hange is waiting for them. They go to medical instead of to her office this time. As soon as they step into the room Levi freezes.

“Fuck,” he says. Erwin turns around to see him in the entryway, staring in, eyes wide, hands trembling. His face is again very pale.

“Let me take a look, Levi,” Hange says.

Levi takes two steps into the room before abruptly stopping again. His eyes go unfocused. It’s a disconcerting look and Erwin frowns.

“Levi?” he says.

“The bandages,” Levi says. His eyes refocus to train in on Hange.

“How about you sit down, Levi,” Hange says. “I’m only going to take a look.”

Levi shakes his head. He reaches to touch the edge of the gauze Erwin placed on his shoulder. “I don’t…”

“It’s alright,” Erwin says. “Come on, Levi.” He walks towards Levi carefully, but it isn’t until he reaches out to put a hand against his opposite shoulder that Levi flinches.

“No, I don’t – I don’t want the bandages taken off,” Levi says, taking a step back. His breathing suddenly kicks up and there’s still something off about his eyes, but he’s reacting more now.

“You don’t have bandages on,” Erwin says, growing increasingly concerned. “It’s only the gauze I put on.”

“I don’t want them changed,” Levi says, backing up from Erwin. “You’re not fucking touching me.”

“We just need to take a look at the wound,” Erwin says, staying where he is.

“Levi,” Hange says, “you’re in medical, at the Survey Corps. Do you know you’re at the Survey Corps?”

It isn’t until then that it hits Erwin that Levi’s reacting like some soldiers react when reminded of titans within the walls. Waking dreams – he’s seen both short, momentary lapses and full blown, drawn out hallucinations. Hange seems to have already come to the same conclusion.

“Yes,” Levi says though, “of course I fucking do, I just, I don’t want – I won’t take it off.”

“It’s only gauze and it’s damp, so it shouldn’t hurt too badly to take it off,” Hange says. “Levi, I need to take it off to take a look. You need to have it treated if you want to avoid infection.”

Levi stands stiffly for another moment. His eyes still look somewhat dazed. He reaches for his shoulder then, and very slowly starts pulling off the gauze. He winces, and his hand shakes, but he takes it off. He hesitates again before sitting down.

“Don’t touch it,” he says to Hange. “I fucking mean it, Four-Eyes, don’t touch.”

“Okay,” she says.

Levi sits down. He’s completely tense. Hange looks, and then all at once her face falls, and then she meets Erwin’s eyes with a harsh grimace. Erwin can’t quite control his own expression when he sees that look and Levi picks up on it.

“What?” he says sharply. “What is it?” When Hange says nothing he cranes his neck to look at the wound. “What the fuck is it, Shitty Glasses? It didn’t – it doesn’t look that bad, what the fuck is wrong?”

“It’s not a very bad burn,” Hange says carefully, “there’s just – there’s a few small bits here, small, er, bits of debris, that I’ll need to remove before –”

“ _What?_ ” Levi says.

“It’s probably from your shirt,” Hange says. “It won’t take me long, but –”

Levi jumps up. “No,” he says, “no, no, fucking hell, fuck, shit.”

“I can try washing it –” she says.

“No, no, _fuck_.”

“And if that doesn’t do it, then I’ll just use some tweezers to get at it. Shouldn’t take five minutes, promise.”

“ _No_ ,” Levi says. He paces around the small room, running one hand through his hair, shaking.

“Levi –” Erwin says.

Levi flinches away from him. “Don’t,” he says, one hand coming up as if to block him, angling his body so that his hurt shoulder is farthest from him.

“Levi,” Erwin says as calmly and gently as he can, voice soft. “I know this is scaring you. It’s alright though, you’re going to be fine, and this will all be over with very shortly.”

Levi shakes his head. “Shit,” he says.

“Why don’t you let Hange wash it,” Erwin says. “She may be able to clean it fine that way.”

“I don’t – I can’t have someone – I don’t want anyone to touch it, it fucking hurts, it’s –”

It strikes Erwin suddenly as odd – Levi has said several times now that it hurts, has seemed afraid of the pain getting worse, and it’s not odd that he would be scared of the pain – Erwin’s sure that it hurts considerably already – it’s odd that he’s so focused on the pain now when he hasn’t been for his other injuries.

In fact, Levi hadn’t seemed scared of the pain at all for his previous injuries. He’d been _less_ scared when the stitching was actually going on, had calmed down more as the stitching progressed.

“I know it hurts a lot already,” Erwin says carefully. He turns to Hange. “Hange, is there –”

“I’ll get some,” she says, and is already walking out the door.

“Alcohol doesn’t do a damn thing for me,” Levi says, still pacing restlessly, “I don’t get drunk. You know I can’t get drunk, Erwin –”

“She’s going to get laudanum,” Erwin says.

Levi pauses. “What? You can’t give me that shit, it’s not a fucking surgery, I’m not dying – I know we don’t have enough painkiller to be wasting it on –”

“You’re in a lot of pain,” Erwin says. “You have debris in a burn wound. It is a type of surgery, really, to remove debris. You’re right, we won’t be able to give you a lot, but hopefully it will be enough to make the pain manageable.”

Levi hesitates. He keeps looking at Erwin, but Hange bursts back in again with a small bottle in her hand and a spoon.

“You’ll want the water skin,” she says, nodding at where Levi had put it down when they got there. Levi hesitates but goes and picks it up again. Hange takes the tincture and carefully drips a number of drops of the laudanum onto the spoon. She holds it out to Levi.

Levi looks at it, and then carefully takes it from her, putting the spoon in his mouth. A moment later his face screws up at the bitterness and he takes a few quick drinks of water.

“It won’t take long,” Hange says. “We can wait until it kicks in. You should sit down.”

Levi shoots Hange a glare and continues pacing instead. He stays looking anxious for a bit, until he finally starts to slow, and his eyes start to glaze over just a bit, and he finally does sit down on the bed. He sits there for several long moments.

“Shit,” Levi says. As far as Erwin knows, Levi has never had laudanum before. He’s never been to medical before – has only patched himself up or had Hange take care of his injuries. Erwin doesn’t know how much Hange gave him – it couldn’t have been too much, because they really do not have enough to spare, but it also is obviously enough to not only block some of the pain but help calm him down a bit.

“Ready to start, Shorty?” Hange says.

Levi shoots her a glare. Hange drags over a chair and drops a bucket of water on the floor next to it and then takes a piece of soap and a washcloth and drops both on the bed next to where Levi sits. Erwin sees her slip a pair of tweezers into her pocket.

Erwin sits down to Levi’s right, on the bed, while Hange sits on the chair to Levi’s left. Levi lets out a harsh breath and turns to face Erwin, so his back is towards Hange.

Slowly, so as not to startle him like he had when Levi had his arm stitched, Erwin takes one of Levi’s hands. He looks somewhat queasy, but his breathing isn’t overly fast and he doesn’t look panicked anymore. His eyes are slightly glazed.

“Just water now,” Hange says. When she touches the damp cloth to Levi’s shoulder he flinches forward. Hange gently places her other hand on his arm, steadying him. When she dabs at the wound this time he flinches again and turns his head sharply to the side, eyes closing, teeth gritted. He squeezes hard on Erwin’s hand.

“Fuck,” Levi says, eyes screwing shut tighter. The muscles in his shoulder and neck and arms all go tense, tightening further as Hange dabs at the wound. Erwin sees her take out the tweezers.

“Going to feel the tweezers now, Levi,” Hange says. She pauses. “Levi, I’ll need you to stay still. I think you should lie down.”

Levi shakes his head, still tilted down, eyes closed.

“Levi,” Erwin says, “come on now.”

Levi shakes his head again. “Just do it.”

Hange makes eye contact with Erwin, but then shrugs. “Okay,” she says. She takes his arm in one hand again and Levi tenses. Erwin doesn’t see what she does, but Levi flinches and jerks away with a sharp noise of pain.

“Easy,” Erwin says. “It’s alright.”

“G-gah,” Levi says, breath hitching, face going tight with pain.

“Only a few spots,” Hange says.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Levi says. He starts shaking, though it looks more like from strain this time, trying to keep himself still and from flinching away too much. “Fuck. Shit.”

“Deep breath,” Hange says.

Levi’s eyes open, suddenly, and Erwin sees a shock of fear and pain, and then they close again as his whole body jolts forward and he yells through his teeth. He breathes raggedly after that, a couple more cut off sounds of pain coming through his teeth.

“Got it,” Hange says. “Water and soap. This might sting.”

She finishes washing it, and then she applies some type of cream, before she wraps it up and brings Levi something more to drink. Levi settles slowly, relaxes slowly, and then drinks the water that she gives him.

“You should rest now,” Hange says. “You should rest here,” Hange clarifies, when Levi goes to stand. “So I can take a look at it later tonight.”

Levi stares at Furlan venomously from where he lies on the bed, tense, sweat wetting his hair, leaned up against the wall, propped up only on his elbows and one pillow.

Furlan holds the bucket of water and the new bandages. “I gotta change them, Levi.”

“Fuck. Off,” Levi says. When Furlan places the bucket onto the ground and kneels on the ground, Levi recoils, pushing himself farther backwards, more upright against the wall. “ _Furlan_.”

“I’m sorry,” Furlan says. He starts pulling the blanket off of Levi and Levi grabs onto it in a tight grip. Furlan only flips the other side up instead.

Levi’s only wearing loose short underwear underneath, along with the bandages wrapped around his thigh. Levi tenses, draws in his other leg. He reaches and grabs Furlan’s arm, pulling him away. The angle is awkward, but Levi’s strong enough that he’s able to wrench Furlan back by the arm.

“Levi, I gotta change them,” Furlan says. “It’ll get infected. I _have_ to change them, Levi.”

Levi glares at him. A tightening panic wraps around his ribs. At first his mind scrambles, trying to find a way out – he could wait until later, could wait another day, does it really have to be changed? Their place is so clean, he keeps it so clean –

His grip loosens and Furlan pulls his arm free slowly. He pauses, and Levi just looks back at him, dread suddenly sweeping in.

Furlan’s expression changes as he takes in the look on Levi’s face. He leans back and starts unbuckling his belt. “Here,” he says. He pulls it free and then doubles it over. “You can bite down. It’ll help.”

Levi’s hands start shaking. He takes the belt, looks at it, runs his fingers over the leather. Furlan touches his leg and Levi flinches. He looks as Furlan starts unwrapping the very end of it, and finally shuts his eyes and puts the belt between his teeth. He lies back, squeezes his eyes shut. The pain hits a moment later, a sharp, burning, white hot streak of pain. Levi screams into the leather.

Levi won’t let Hange change the bandages.

“You just put them on six fucking hours ago,” Levi says, sitting up in bed, tense, eyes darting from Hange to Erwin.

“They need to be changed twice a day,” Hange says calmly.

“Bullshit,” Levi says. “Once a day. They don’t need –”

“They do,” Hange says.

Her voice is uncharacteristically hard, serious. They’ve been arguing for several minutes.

Levi clenches his hands. “I’ve gotten burned before, once a day is plenty.”

“They should be changed twice a day,” Hange says. “That is standard medical practice when you have the supplies to do it. You need it changed twice a day, Levi.”

He’s only woken up a little while ago, the laudanum keeping him tired and asleep. Erwin brought him food and they’d been sitting together in the small medical room until Hange got there. Erwin had been waiting for her. Levi apparently had forgotten that she was coming back, or at least had not fully processed that she was coming to look at the wound again.

“Once a day is fucking enou-”

“Are you a doctor, Levi?” Hange says. “Do you have any medical training at all, Levi? Please, do inform me if I’ve missed something.”

Levi goes silent, tensing even further. His eyes dart to Erwin and this time there’s almost something of a plea there. Erwin moves from where he was leaning against the wall to the chair next to Levi’s bed.

“Hange will get it done fast for you,” he says.

Levi’s mouth is a tight line. “No,” he says. It comes out too quiet, thin.

“This burn is not as bad as that one,” Erwin says. It’s very true – the burn on his shoulder is mild, and the cauterization was most definitely not. “It won’t hurt as badly. You can handle it.”

“You don’t know that,” Levi says, fast and very quiet. He glances between them again, settles back on Erwin. “It’s gonna be fucking awful anyway, it’s gonna hurt like absolute hell and you want me to do it twice a fucking day – it’s not even been half a day since you put the shitty things on, I –”

“It won’t hurt more than stitches,” Hange says. “At least not much worse.”

“Stitches aren’t exactly a fun time either,” Levi says.

“You’re not afraid of pain,” Erwin says. Levi’s eyes snap over to him. “You’re not,” he says again. “You don’t have a hard time with stitches, you never seem afraid of the stitches at all, only of someone looking at the cut. I know it will hurt and that will be very unpleasant, but you’re not afraid of pain, Levi, and you can handle it just fine.”

Erwin pauses, waits, but Levi doesn’t say anything. His expression tightens, almost defensive, but he says nothing. “You’re only afraid of having the bandages unwrapped,” Erwin says. Levi’s teeth set, clenching tightly, eyes flashing with anger, but Erwin continues before he can speak. “So I know this will be difficult,” Erwin says, “because changing the bandages makes you so anxious, but you’re not afraid of pain, Levi, you don’t need to be focusing on it so much now. It will be fine.”

Levi grinds his teeth for a moment. “Well the pain sure doesn’t fucking help,” he says.

“It’s unpleasant. It’s difficult,” Erwin says. “But you don’t need to be afraid of it. You aren’t afraid of it really. It’s okay. Hange isn’t going to hurt you. She’s not going to burn you. She just needs to change the bandages. It will hurt a bit and then it will be over.”

Levi clenches his teeth some more, looks away. Erwin waits a moment, and then he moves over to the other side of Levi’s bed, while Hange stays on the side that his hurt shoulder is on. Erwin pulls the chair around with him, and sets it close to Levi’s bed.

“Let me see your hand,” Erwin says.

Levi shakes his head, tenses some more. He doesn’t look at him.

“It’s okay, Levi, let’s get it over with,” Erwin says. “We’ll get you some tea afterwards, let you rest more.”

When Hange shifts on her chair, Levi flinches, moves closer to Erwin. His breathing kicks up.

“Easy,” Erwin says. “Easy, you’re okay.”

His breathing doesn’t go back down again. His hands start shaking. Hange freezes, and then very slowly pulls her chair a little closer. Levi backs up farther against the bed. He turns his head, looking away from her, towards Erwin. His face is so pale.

Erwin takes his hand then. Levi grasps tightly, head turned almost as far as it can go away from Hange, eyes down though, not looking at Erwin either. When Hange touches his arm, below the burn, just one finger at first, gently, Levi flinches back and screws his eyes shut, a noise coming up his throat. The shaking gets worse.

“It’s okay,” Erwin says. “It’ll only take a minute. Try to breathe a little slower, Levi.”

It’s unsettling. Erwin’s never seen Levi so scared – or at least, he’s never seen him look so scared.

“Deep breath,” Hange says.

Levi’s hand in Erwin’s gets even tighter and Erwin sees Hange begin to unwrap the edge of the bandage. Everything is okay for about ten seconds, and then Levi’s breathing goes from ragged and shallow to full on hyperventilating all at once.

“Easy, slower, Levi,” Erwin says. He reaches out with his other hand, places it on Levi’s knee without thinking. “It’s okay.”

He hyperventilates and shakes the rest of the way through. Erwin thinks Levi’s a second away from bolting the entire time. When Hange finally finishes, it takes him another several minutes to really calm down. He looks exhausted and still anxious.

“I’ll get that tea,” Hange says, jumping up when it’s done. Levi lets go of his hand to rub his hands over his face, letting out a stuttered breath.

“It’s all over now,” Erwin says.

Levi lets out another rush of air. “Yeah, until tomorrow morning.”

“You got through it,” Erwin says. “You’ll get through it tomorrow too.”

Levi shakes his head. He shudders. “I fucking hate this.”

“Have you ever gotten burned before – after your leg I mean?”

“No,” Levi says. “Not badly enough to need treatment anyway.”

“Is there a reason the bandages are so hard?” Erwin says.

The conversation feels somewhat surreal, and at the same time Erwin feels it’s very precarious. Levi has very, very rarely ever seemed _vulnerable_ to Erwin, never mind actually engaged in a conversation while so.

“They fucking hurt,” Levi says. “With the burn on my leg – I had to change them every day for weeks, I was fifteen years old, it was just really fucking painful.”

“I’m sorry,” Erwin says. He hadn’t realized that Levi had been that young.

Levi leans forward, head in his hands then. He shakes his head again. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do this twice a fucking day, Erwin.”

Erwin’s taken aback by the anxiety in his voice. He carefully places a hand on Levi’s back. “You’ll do fine,” he says. “Me and Hange will help you, and we can go slowly, and if you need a break you only need to ask.”

Levi shakes his head. “I don’t wanna do this.”

It comes out thin and quiet and Erwin’s frown deepens. “It’s going to be okay,” he says.

Hange reenters with tea then, and Levi sits back up straight to take his. They drink the tea, and Levi seems to calm a bit more as Hange makes idle talk, but the tense, sunken look in his expression doesn’t go away. When Levi’s finished his tea, he insists on going back to his room to sleep for the night, and Hange tells him repeatedly that he needs to come back the next morning to have the bandages changed again.

Levi reluctantly agrees to meet Hange and Erwin in Hange’s office the next morning after breakfast.

Levi looks just as anxious the next morning. On top of it, he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. He’s absent at breakfast, but shows up at Hange’s office like he said he would.

It goes about the same as it did the day before. Levi shakes, hyperventilates, and draws himself as far back on the bed as he can go, crushing Erwin’s hand, head turned sharply away. They get it done. It takes him a while to calm down afterwards, and then he disappears somewhere and Erwin doesn’t see him for the rest of the day, until he finds Levi picking at dinner in the mess hall. He follows Hange and Erwin back to Hange’s office afterwards with a scowl on his face and his shoulders tensed.

It goes on for three days. Levi seems to get marginally better with having the bandages changed. Erwin’s not sure it matters. Having a very anxiety-inducing, and on top of that painful, event twice a day is obviously taking a toll. Levi is remarkably short-tempered, jumpy, and visibly stressed. The soldiers start avoiding him. Levi’s squad is overly quiet every time Erwin sees them and Levi is present. It’s only been three days and Erwin’s sure Levi’s already lost weight. He’s not eating, and Erwin doesn’t think he’s sleeping either. He looks exhausted.

Erwin finally decides an intervention is necessary when he comes outside to find Levi screaming at a recruit – Erwin’s not even sure what the recruit did considering it seems Levi’s simply hurling every possible demeaning insult and curse word he can think of at the boy, who looks like he’s about to cry.

“Captain Levi,” Erwin says. He waits until Levi pauses to look at him, turning his head with a scowl. “I need your presence for a bit.”

Levi scowls more at him before turning back to the recruit and giving one final round of abuse. Then he stalks off towards Erwin.

“What?” Levi says.

“Let’s get some tea,” Erwin says.

“ _What?_ ” Levi says. “You’re taking me away from training to get some shitty _tea_ , Eyebrows?”

“I’m taking you away from harassing a recruit to get some tea,” Erwin says.

Levi mumbles a string of curses under his breath. Erwin ignores him in favor of continuing to the officer’s kitchens, where he proceeds to begin brewing a cup of tea.

“I want you to take the rest of today off,” Erwin says.

Levi huffs at him. “I don’t need a fucking day off, when’s the last time I’ve taken a day off, Erwin?”

“I’m not sure you ever have,” Erwin says. “You need one. Take the rest of today off. It’s an order.”

“Whatever, Erwin.” Levi takes the tea when Erwin but his eyes narrow at him. “What’s this about?”

“You’re stressed, you’re not eating,” Erwin says. “You’re driving everyone else insane. You need a break.”

“Tch,” Levi says, looking away.

“You should try to get some rest,” Erwin says. “Have you been sleeping?”

“I never sleep.”

“You obviously sleep _some_. How much sleep have you been getting?”

Levi shrugs.

“Levi.”

“I don’t know, couple hours maybe.”

Erwin winces. He knows Levi only ever sleeps a few hours at night, which despite Erwin’s concern, it appears he can function off of, but Erwin doesn’t really think that leaves him any room to be sleeping even less.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Erwin says.

Levi doesn’t answer. He sips his tea for another few long moments, turned away from him. Erwin waits until Levi finally looks back. His expression is impassive, blank.

“How much longer until the bandages can stay off?” he says.

“I’m not sure,” Erwin says. “It shouldn’t be too much longer. It’s healing well. Maybe another few days. We can ask Hange.”

Levi takes the rest of the day off but is back outside for training the next morning. He can’t use ODM with the burns on his shoulder, which is probably not helping things. Erwin thinks he’s restless. It doesn’t stop him from doing other types of training, and his squad have been complaining about the endless conditioning he’s been having them all do.

Things finally get better about a day after that – Hange still changes the bandages for him for another couple days, but it’s healed enough by then that it’s no longer very painful. It still clearly makes Levi nervous, but it’s easier, not so different from changing bandages on any other wound.

It’s another week after that before he can go back to using ODM, and then things finally get back to normal and Erwin finally sees Levi relax, start to eat normally again, the circles fading from under his eyes. It seems like it takes a little longer for his mood to return to normal, but eventually that seems better as well. It’s overall a very stressful, painful couple of weeks, and Erwin sincerely hopes that Levi never gets a burn like that again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess what the next chapter is going to be?
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented and to everyone who continues to comment and leave kudos! I appreciate it so much. Hope everyone is doing well right now.


	4. Sear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TW Please note the added tags.

It’s been almost three years now since Levi first joined the Corps, and Erwin has gotten used to seeing Levi in extremely dangerous positions, even by their standards, and come out alive. He feels as if every time they go outside the walls, Erwin becomes more and more in awe of how adept, how strong, how dangerous, Levi really is. He also becomes both more and less worried about Levi’s survival. As it becomes startlingly and irrevocably clear that Levi is their greatest weapon, and that there in all likelihood will never be a soldier as good as him again in their lifetime, Erwin worries more about losing him, and as time goes on Levi and Erwin grow closer, until Erwin worries about losing him in much more than a military capacity as well. But with every titan that he kills with a disarmingly easy grace, and with every mission beyond the walls that he comes back from, Erwin becomes more sure of Levi’s chances of survival.

It is on an open plain with three titans, one of them abnormal, where Erwin, Levi, and the rest of the front guard get cut off from the larger group, when Levi almost dies.

Erwin slices his blades through the neck of the titan and hears the zing of metal wires and gas canisters firing. It is all he can do to hook himself onto another titan and go skidding across the ground, just barely avoiding a free fall from ten meters up. He passes Levi on the way down, just as Levi is shooting upwards, past the mouth of the abnormal. He sees it lunge, teeth clicking shut, and it’s in that moment, Erwin only a meter from Levi, the two of them flying by each other in mid air, that Levi’s body is jerked abruptly to the side. The titan’s bitten down on his wire.

That’s all Erwin sees before he is hurtling towards the ground, skidding on his feet to stay upright.

When he turns again, he sees Levi falling, wires twisted, and then one of them goes taunt, and Levi screams.

It’s Mike who kills the titan, and with the slice to its nape the things mouth falls open and releases Levi’s wire. Levi falls the two or so meters down to the ground. Erwin looks around to see that all three are now dead – Levi, Mike, and Erwin each having killed one.

And then Levi screams again, and Erwin’s eyes snap back to him, and he sees red, and then he starts running.

“Levi,” Erwin says. Mike is already coming to a stop where he’s on the ground as well, curled over. At first Erwin sees the blood on his jacket, and then his shirt, and then the ground, and then he realizes with a jolt that he can see it spreading, pooling, rapidly.

“Medic!” Mike yells. He waves his blades in the air, signaling them. “We need a medic!”

Erwin drops to his knees at Levi’s side. He feels blood soak into the fabric of his pants.

“Gh-ah,” Levi says. He grits his teeth but his eyes are wide, staring at his own arm.

Erwin takes his arm in his hands, blood sticky and warm on his palms, against his fingers. The wire – the wire is still wrapped around his arm. It’s cut into him – loose now. Erwin pulls it away from Levi’s skin. He pulls off his own jacket in a frantic burst, and then wraps it around Levi’s arm. Mike drops to his knees beside him and starts tying a belt around Levi’s arm, above his elbow.

“Lie down, lie down,” Mike says, pushing Levi onto his back, holding Levi’s arm up in the air, to keep it elevated in relation to his heart.

“Fuck,” Levi says. “Fuck – fuck, _shit_.”

His eyes are wide and almost bewildered – the beginnings of shock, Erwin thinks.

Someone – two people, drop next to them a moment later – the medics, their wagon a few feet away.

“Commander,” one of them says, and Erwin moves to make room. Erwin turns to see her eyes dart quickly, to Levi’s face, the wound, the bloody wire. She turns to the other medic. “Kerosene,” she says. “Quickly.”

It takes Erwin a moment to process. It takes him a moment to process and then he is abruptly splitting into two. He is used to the feeling. The utterly panicked onslaught of dread, pain, disbelief, happens in a mirror world – the astounding disbelief, because when Levi had told him that he was afraid of having another wound cauterized, Erwin had taken it as unfounded, an irrational fear, because wounds were so very rarely cauterized for treatment, and to need it twice – it was so horribly unlikely. There is a part of Erwin that could almost laugh at the utter ironic cruelty. A larger part which is simply horrified – absolutely, frozenly horrified.

But Erwin has been horrified too many times in his life. Has split himself apart too many times not to be able to split himself now. He still feels it – still feels all of the disbelief and horror and he wants to vomit about what he’s about to do.

It’s as if his heart and his head are both still running at full speed, where for most people one would need to take over. Despite the onslaught of emotion, he is thinking no less clearly.

“You two, get over here!” Erwin yells at two other soldiers, on horses, a bit away. They’ll need more people. He looks back down at Levi. His eyes go from his arm, outstretched in the air, held in Mike’s grip, to Erwin’s face. He’s incredibly pale. He either hasn’t heard the medic or didn’t process it. Erwin looks around for a stick or something. When he can’t find one, he quickly uses the end of his blade to cut one of Levi’s harness straps.

Erwin moves, goes over at Levi’s head. When the two soldiers reach them, Erwin directs them, one on each side. He looks up at Mike but he’s already nodding at him, moving. Erwin looks up and sees the medic with a kerosene torch, about to light it.

“Each of you take an arm, put your weight into it,” Erwin says to the two soldiers while putting each of his own hands on Levi’s shoulders, pressing down. Mike moves to sit on Levi’s legs, hands braced on his hips.

Levi doesn’t react at first, and then he gives his arm a tug, can’t move it, and Erwin sees the moment he realizes they’re holding him down. His eyes suddenly widen even more, and then he starts pulling at his limbs, starts trying to get up, the fear on his expression heightening by the second.

“Let go – let – let me up – what the fuck,” Levi says.

With a sudden whoosh, the kerosene torch goes up in flames. It’s bright and only two meters away. Levi’s eyes train in on it and his entire body goes still.

“No,” he says. His lips barely move, his voice so low Erwin almost doesn’t hear it. “No,” he says, louder this time. He goes even paler. “No – no, no, _no_.” His voice cracks, goes wet as it gets louder. He starts struggling frantically, violently, voice raising with every repetition. “ _No_ ,” he says. “No, n-no, _no!_ ”

The medic places a knife in the flames of the torch, heating it.

“Let go, let go, let go!” Levi says. It takes all of their full effort to keep him on the ground. Levi screams. The medic approaches again. Levi thrashes. She unwraps Erwin’s jacket, then cuts away the material of Levi’s jacket and shirt, revealing the gaping, bleeding gash. It’s deep and gruesome and still spilling blood much too fast.

“Don’t, don’t, let go,” Levi says. Erwin watches tears well up in Levi’s eyes, where they are looking at the flaming torch and the knife that the second medic holds, and it’s the worst kind of shock – Erwin’s never seen Levi cry, never expected to ever see Levi cry, really. His eyes are glazed with terror and shock. Levi’s eyes move back to him as he keeps struggling to get up. “Erwin – _Erwin_.”

“Just look at me,” Erwin says, because he doesn’t know what he can say that will possibly make it better, just wants suddenly and desperately for Levi to not look back at the flame or the knife again, wants him to keep looking up, or to close his eyes, just not to keep looking at that flame and knife like he’d rather die than go through this again. “Just look at me, keep looking at me,” Erwin says.

“No, no,” Levi says, and of course he doesn’t listen to Erwin, but looks back at the knife, glowing metal, and as the second medic hands it over to the first, tears spill over down Levi’s face. “Stop, stop, _stop, don’t!_ ”

“Bite this, bite down, look at me,” Erwin says, pushing the piece of leather he’d cut from Levi’s harness straps at Levi’s mouth. Erwin forces it between his teeth as Levi struggles, head thrashing. His eyes meet Erwin’s for one more second after that. It is such a look of pain and horror and betrayal and desperation, his grey eyes so wide, sharp and glassy at the same time, tears in the corners and red on the edges from them.

Normally only the eyes of the dead haunt Erwin’s nightmares, but he’s pretty damn sure that Levi’s about to become the exception.

Erwin looks at Levi, looks at his eyes, as the medic presses the hot knife to Levi’s skin. Levi arches, screams around the bite, eyes wide, suddenly unfocused, the tendons of his neck sticking out.

Erwin presses his weight down onto Levi’s shoulders. Levi collapses back, and then does the same thing all over again. Erwin’s not sure why he thought it would be simple, why he thought it would be over quickly, why he had subconsciously thought Levi would pass out. None of those things happen.

It’s a wide gash. The medic pinches skin together and holds the flat of the knife blade against the skin, waits a solid moment, then holds it back up. She checks the burn, then does it again. This repeats a couple of times until she’s satisfied with the level of cauterization, so as to avoid burning more tissue than necessary. She moves farther along the wound and repeats the process. She has to reheat the knife once.

It still takes less than five minutes, but it’s an excruciating process, and Levi, miraculously, Erwin thinks, and torturously, stays conscious. He screams and struggles mindlessly. When she’s finally finished, he continues to struggle, noises of pain coming out around the bite, entire body shaking.

Once the medic has cleaned the wound with alcohol as well, she starts wrapping it up. It’s bandaged tightly. Levi only stops fighting them completely when she’s done, and then they can let go of him again. He spits out the leather in his mouth just to gasp, breathing harshly.

Erwin and the medic help him into the wagon, help him lie down, make him drink some water and put a clean cloak over him. His eyes are unfocused, his movements uncoordinated. He’s in shock. Erwin wants to stay with him but can’t. He leaves Levi with the medics to get back on his horse. He’s thankful that they’d at least already been on their way back.

The second that Erwin gets back inside the walls and delivers a very hasty summary report, he is in medical looking for Levi. He is immensely relieved to find Hange already there, sitting next to Levi, where he’s asleep in an infirmary bed.

She looks up at him with a sort of grimaced smile. “I gave him laudanum,” Hange says. “More this time. He’s out cold.”

Erwin lets out a long sigh, and then all but collapses into the free chair. He puts his head in his hands and for the first time allows the situation to really sink in, to process just how terrible it all really is – and at the same time, how Levi is alive, is safe in the bed across the room from him.

“Mike told me what happened,” Hange says. “He’s had a wound cauterized before, hasn’t he?”

Erwin nods, figures there’s no point in denying it if she’s already figured it out. Besides, he doesn’t think Levi really guarded the fact as a secret, just that he didn’t like talking about it.

“Poor Shorty,” Hange says. “That’s some royally shitty luck.”

Erwin groans. “This is a nightmare, Hange.”

“Yeah, it is,” Hange says. “Look on the bright side, maybe this will help him get over his fear at being treated.”

Erwin was inclined to think it was much more likely to do the opposite. His stomach flips just thinking about how they’re going to get through changing the bandages. It’s going to be much more painful this time around, not to mention Levi’s now just gone through something horribly traumatic again. Erwin is worried that even with laudanum, he won’t be able to stay calm, they won’t be able to keep him calm. Erwin doesn’t want to ever have to hold Levi down like that again.

“I somehow doubt that,” Erwin says.

“It will be alright, Erwin,” Hange says, voice going softer. “You have enough to worry about. We’ll get him through this.”

Erwin hopes so.

An unfortunate fact is that Levi does not have many friends in the Corps – though none of them really do, of the higher members. Plenty of soldiers that they are friendly with, but it is difficult to truly be on equal footing as friends when there’s a difference in rank, when one is a subordinate. It is really only Erwin and Hange that Levi trusts, maybe Mike and Nanaba to some extent as well, Petra and Eld after that, Oluo and Gunther to a lesser extent. Right after such a traumatic event, Erwin wants to be there for him, and more than that wants to make sure he’s alone as little as possible, but he and Hange are two of the busiest members of the Corps.

Still, Hange stays with him until he wakes up, and Erwin checks twice before he comes back after Levi’s woken up, the same day. He makes it all of one step in the door when Levi turns away to look at the wall and tells him to get out.

Erwin just stands there a moment, shocked. Hange grimaces at him.

“Levi?” Erwin says, very soft, because he has no idea what else to say, feels a growing hurt and empathy at the same time.

“I don’t want to talk to you, get out,” Levi says.

Erwin just stands there a moment, and then he says, quietly again, “Okay,” and leaves.

Logically, Erwin realizes that he should have expected this. Logically, Erwin realizes that he did the right thing, that he saved Levi’s life, that even if he weren’t there, the medics would have done the same thing, would have directed soldiers to help the way that he had, would have held him down the same way that he had. Logically, Erwin knows that Levi’s traumatized and still scared and probably feels betrayed by Erwin’s actions, an emotion that Erwin recognizes as rational in an irrational kind of way – it makes sense that Levi would feel like that regardless of whether he understands that Erwin only did it to save his life.

Logically, Erwin realizes all of this, but it still hurts. Even more so because Erwin wants so badly to help and instead is told point blank to stay away.

“He’s just upset right now,” Hange says later that night, when she finds Erwin in his office drinking whiskey. Hange pours herself a glass too and falls into the chair next to his desk. “I’m sure he’ll come around, but he’s not thinking clearly right now, and the laudanum sure isn’t going to help that either.”

“I know that,” Erwin says, and tells himself again that he shouldn’t be upset by Levi’s words or actions right now. Levi’s a smart man, and if he doesn’t fully grasp that Erwin only did what had to be done now, then he certainly will when his mind’s a little clearer. “How is he doing?”

Hange sighs. “Honestly? He’s doing shit. He’s still in a lot of pain, even with the laudanum. They didn’t look at the wound anymore tonight. He’s terrified of having the bandages changed tomorrow. I don’t know how it will go. I’ll give him more laudanum but it’s going to hurt like hell anyway.”

“Should I come?” Erwin says.

“I don’t know,” Hange says. “You could wait in the hall, see if he wants you, or if we need you. Though I don’t know if it would really be better to have people he knows rather than just random medics if he has to be held down again.”

“You don’t think it would be easier for him if it’s people he trusts?”

She’s silent for a moment, and then she sighs. “Truthfully, I think that it might be a little easier, but I also think that when you and Mike held him down he lost trust in you, however irrational and temporary it might be, and right now he needs people. I don’t want to take anymore people away from him.”

Erwin sighs too and takes another sip of his drink. “Yes, you’re probably right,” he says. He feels a little bitter about it, but mostly he just feels sad. “Maybe it’s best I’m there then,” Erwin says, “since he already doesn’t want to see me.”

The first time that Furlan changed the bandages for Levi, Levi hadn’t realized how much it was going to hurt. He’d passed out during the cauterization, and then woke up moaning and whimpering from the pain, Furlan wiping sweat off his forehead with a damp cloth. He’d fallen back asleep again, and when he woke up a second time it was a little better. Not good. It had still hurt badly enough that Levi felt a little bit like he was dying, but he was at least coherent. And Furlan said he needed to change the bandages, and Levi had assumed it would hurt a bit more when Furlan washed the wound, which he wasn’t looking forward to, but he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt just having the bandages unwrapped, hadn’t thought about how it would pull away from the healing wound, how his skin would be sticky from healing tissue, how burns were hypersensitive in a way normal skin, and even scraped or cut skin, was not.

He stops Furlan the second he starts, overwhelmed by the sudden burst of pain. He flinches and pulls away and cries out when he starts again. He goes for only another thirty seconds when Levi grabs his wrist.

“Stop,” he says. “Stop, fuck – _fuck_ , it hurts.”

“Lets just get it over with, Lee,” Furlan says.

Levi shakes his head. “No,” he says.

“Come on,” Furlan says, “it’s gotta be cleaned.”

It takes only another minute for Levi to start crying. The pain is overwhelming and so far past his tolerance. He grabs at Furlan’s hands again, shakes his head. “Stop, I – stop.”

“Just breathe,” Furlan says. He rubs Levi’s knee. “We can take breaks, but I have to get it done.”

Levi vomits when Furlan starts again. Then he cries some more. He’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t totally overcome with the pain, unable to focus on anything else. He squirms and grabs at Furlan some more, says he can’t do it, says he needs to stop. Furlan is unusually patient. They’re good friends, have been living with each other for about a year now, but this level of vulnerability and comfort is new. Levi will be grateful for it later, but in the moment he’s in pain and upset and gets angrier and lashes out more and more as it goes on.

The second half is easier, wrapping up the wound with clean bandages. Levi still cries through it, so past the end of his rope, and then curls away from Furlan afterwards, irrationally angry at him for putting him through that. He knows it’s petty, childish, even as he does it, but he’s too far gone to care. Furlan rubs his back anyway, brings him tea, talks to him even when Levi says nothing back.

The second time Furlan changes the bandages, Levi tells him no at first, and then Furlan gives him a bite, which does help, though it’s still hell, still has Levi screaming around it, eventually crying again.

He grows to dread it. A deep, painful, searing dread. It devolves into a simmering anxiety, a constant tension that ramps up more and more the closer it gets to afternoon, when Furlan always changes it for him. Levi tries doing it himself but his hands shake too much and it winds up taking twice as long because he has to steel himself for every little piece of bandage he unwraps. He doesn’t start changing the bandages himself until weeks later, when the wound has healed enough that it’s no longer so painful.

Levi doesn’t leave their apartment for two weeks. Even when the wound heals, the scar stays sensitive for months more. He wears bandages under his clothing to keep the fabric from rubbing against it. Eventually the sensitivity fades, until it takes the opposite effect – he can barely feel anything over the scar tissue.

Erwin meets Hange in medical the next morning, early. He’s walking towards Levi’s room when Hange storms out of it.

“He’s not here,” Hange says, walking his way.

“What?” Erwin says. “What do you mean he’s not here?”

“I mean he’s gone, no one can find him, the nurses have been looking for him all over the place – there’s a missing vial of laudanum and a missing Levi.”

Erwin lets out a long breath. He’s not sure why he’s surprised. Levi had nearly not let them change the bandages on his shoulder the last time he’d gotten burned, and this will be much more painful, not to mention more reminiscent of the first time he got burned.

“I’ll check his room,” Erwin says. “Go grab Mike and tell him I’ll be absent this morning and to cancel our meeting.”

Hange leaves and Erwin checks Levi’s room. He’s not there. Erwin’s not surprised. He runs into Hange on his way back.

“Not in his room,” Erwin says.

“Not in the cleaning closet or the showers,” Hange says.

“I’ll check the gear shed,” Erwin says.

“I’ll check the stables.”

Erwin doesn’t think he could have really gotten that far – he had to be in a lot of pain, even if he took the laudanum. Erwin sighs and stops when he has finished searching every inch of the gear shed, trying to come up with where Levi might be.

If he were Levi, where would he go? He’d either go somewhere that made him feel safe, if he was very anxious, or he’d go somewhere he didn’t think anyone would look for him at if he were really trying to hide. Levi wasn’t in his room or any of the places he could normally be found, so Erwin was inclined to think Levi was doing the latter, had gone somewhere he thought no one would look for him.

Where’s the last place Erwin would think to look for him at?

Erwin checks Hange’s office first. Then he checks his own office. Finally, he finds Levi in his own bedroom, lying on Erwin’s bed.

“Uh, fuck,” Levi says when he enters.

“Levi,” Erwin says.

“Go away. Fuck off,” Levi says. He looks away from him but Erwin can still see how glazed his eyes are. He’s obviously taken a good amount of the laudanum. His speech is still clear though so Erwin doesn’t think it was too much necessarily.

“Levi, we need to go back to medical,” Erwin says as calmly as he can.

“Fuck that.”

“Levi, this isn’t optional. We have to go,” Erwin says.

“Go to hell, Erwin.”

“Levi,” Erwin says. “You need a doctor. You need to avoid infection. I know how hard this is for you, but we have to do it.”

“Screw you, fucking Shit-Brows.”

“Levi,” Erwin says. He doesn’t know how to convince Levi to go back to medical – especially a drugged Levi who seems intent on insulting him until he goes away. Erwin considers leaving to get Hange instead, thinks she might have better luck, but he’s afraid Levi will leave if Erwin goes, and they’ll have to start the whole hunt over again. “Levi,” he starts again, “as your Commander, I order you to go to medical and get the treatment you need.”

He knows as he says it that it’s a cheap move, but he doesn’t know what to do and Levi’s never disobeyed a direct order from him.

“I resign then,” Levi says.

“You can’t resign, Levi.”

“Tch, sure I can.”

“You signed a five-year term of service.”

“Then I’m defecting. That means you have to kill me anyway, so you can leave me the hell alone right now and let the infection you’re so sure I’m going to get do the job for you.”

Erwin pinches the bridge of his nose. “Levi, please, we need to go to medical. I know you’re scared and I know it will be painful but you have to get treatment for this. You really, really do, Levi. I’m sorry this happened, and I’m so sorry you have to go through this again, but it is very, very important that you continue getting treatment.”

“Fuck off.”

Erwin sighs.

After another several rounds of utterly fruitless efforts on Erwin’s part to convince Levi to go to medical with him, he gives up and leaves. He finds Hange, and then goes to medical himself and gets a doctor. While Hange can stitch wounds and has a good knowledge of field medicine, it’s a very bad burn and she’d told Erwin already that Levi needed a doctor in case there were any signs of infection. Erwin gets two other medics as well and tells them to wait outside the door. He’s afraid that they’ll need to restrain Levi, and he doesn’t think Hange and him will be able to manage it on their own.

Levi is thankfully still there when they get back. The second they walk in he starts hurling insults, swearing with every other word, but Erwin can hear the fear underneath this time.

They try to calm him down, try to explain how important it is, try to reassure him that it won’t be as painful as the last time he had a wound cauterized, because he has medication this time. At first Erwin stays back with the doctor, thinking maybe Levi will listen to Hange better. When he doesn’t, Erwin tries again. Levi just seems to get more angry, more set, and more anxious though. Erwin doesn’t know what to do. Hange winds up making the call for him.

“Levi, either you try to calm down and work with us here, or we bring in medics and restrain you while she changes the bandages,” Hange says.

Levi freezes. He glances at the door, and then back at them. His eyes dart between them, a furious glare on his face. “You wouldn’t,” he says, very quiet.

“Yes, we will,” Hange says. She waits a beat, and the furious look on Levi’s face falters with fear for a moment. “We really don’t want to, Levi, but we will.”

Levi stays frozen, looking back at them. Hange waits another moment, and then she moves to the med kit that the doctor brought. She’ll change the bandages, just wants the doctor to look at the burn before wrapping it back up. Erwin goes to grab the chairs at his table and move them over by his bed.

Hange sits down on one side of the bed and Erwin sits on the other. Levi’s hands start shaking. “Hange,” he says.

He sounds terrified. Erwin’s stomach knots up.

“When did you take the laudanum?” Hange says. “And how much?”

“Around six. Same amount they gave me last night.”

“You can have some more then,” Hange says.

She pours out the amount and gives it to him. They wait until it kicks in. Levi doesn’t relax in that time.

“Okay, Levi,” Hange says. “Let me see your arm now.”

Levi doesn’t move. He’s almost all the way on Erwin’s side of the bed, staring at her like he’s looking into the mouth of a titan.

“Levi, it’s alright,” Erwin says. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Do you remember how you told me that I wasn’t afraid of pain?” Levi says to Erwin, his eyes still glued to Hange and the bandages in her hands. “Well I’m fucking afraid of it now, okay?”

Erwin’s stomach tightens a little more. “It will be oka-”

“Don’t tell me it’ll be okay,” Levi says, teeth clenching. “I know how much it fucking hurts, Erwin – it will not be okay, it will be absolute fucking hell.”

“It won’t hurt as much as the last time,” Hange says. “You didn’t have any pain medication then, right?”

“It already hurts like hell _without_ you touching it,” Levi says.

“It will be okay. You’ll get through it. It’ll only last a few minutes,” Erwin says.

“I’m gonna puke,” Levi says.

He’s very pale and Erwin grabs the wastebasket by his desk and puts it on the nightstand next to them just in case Levi really is going to vomit.

“You’re fine,” Erwin says. “Let me see your hand.”

“No,” Levi says. He draws back further when Hange moves closer. “No, fuck – fucking wait, _wait_.” His voice gets loud and panicked as Hange reaches for his arm. He draws back so that he’s all but falling off the side of the bed, as far from Hange as he can get. Erwin puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him and Levi jumps back. Suddenly he’s hyperventilating, head jerking back and forth between the two of them, completely tense. “Shit, st-stop, I need a minute, I need –”

“Okay,” Hange says, hands up, “okay, just take some deep breaths, Levi. Slow down.”

Levi shakes his head though, keeps hyperventilating. His hands shake and he holds his injured arm in protectively at his side. “No – no, I don’t want it changed, I don’t – I can’t do this – I’ll just die of fucking infection, I don’t want it changed.”

“Levi, I need you to take some slower breaths,” Hange says. “You’re panicking. You just need to slow down your breathing, okay?”

“Fuck – _fuck_ ,” Levi says. He tilts his head down, screws his eyes shut as he tries to take some deeper breaths. He suddenly holds out his injured arm to Hange, not looking at her, as he turns his head towards Erwin instead. “Do it now, just – just fucking do it now.”

Hange takes his arm and Erwin takes his free hand.

“I – I want a bite,” Levi says.

Erwin scrambles for something Levi can bite down on, but Hange was prepared for this too it seems. She hands over a piece of leather and Levi bites down on it hard, eyes shut and turned away, as Hange starts unwrapping the bandages.

Levi tenses all up and makes an awful noise of pain. A moment later tears run down his face, and Erwin can’t tell if it’s from the pain really or just the panic. He pulls away from Hange, flinching, and the doctor steps up. She holds his arm steady and Levi lets out a sob, leans farther away. He crushes Erwin’s hand in his grip.

“It’s okay, it’ll be over soon,” Erwin says.

Levi flinches and screams around the bite. He tries to jerk his arm away.

“Easy, Levi, easy,” Hange says. “Almost done.”

Levi sobs again. He keeps his eyes shut, turned as far away as he can be, the entire time. Hange finishes unwrapping the bandages and Levi’s frantic breathing slows down marginally.

“Worst part over with,” Hange says. “Little break, she just needs to take a look.”

Levi lets out stuttering breaths, doesn’t take the leather from his mouth, doesn’t look over or open his eyes, as the doctor carefully examines his arm. Erwin is relieved when she finds no signs of infection. Hange cleans the wound, applies ointment, and wraps it back up. The doctor leaves. Levi shakes and hyperventilates. He doesn’t stop crying.

Hange rubs his arm, above the wound, and Erwin still holds his hand as Levi lets the leather drop from his mouth. He gasps, head tilted down.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says.

He starts shaking worse, and then he lets go of Erwin’s hand to bring it to his face, and he curls forward, head down, and Erwin hears him choke back a sob, and then another, and then another.

And Erwin sits there, feeling helpless. He rubs Levi’s back. Hange takes his other hand. Levi cries for a while, shaking sobs that he tries to hold in and mostly fails at. When he finally stops, wiping at his face, Erwin stands.

“I’m going to get tea,” he says. He forces his voice quiet and calm, steady. “I’ll be right back.”

When Erwin comes back, Levi is slightly more composed. His eyes are red rimmed and he looks utterly miserable, staring down at his lap.

He drinks the tea. Afterwards, he goes back to his own room, says he wants to be alone. Erwin asks him if he’s sure, tries to convince him to let either him or Hange sit with him, or someone else if he wants, but Levi all but shuts the door in his face. Erwin’s worried. He doesn’t want Levi to be alone.

Erwin checks on him only an hour later to find him sleeping. He checks on him an hour after that and Levi throws a book at him. He comes back two hours after that and finds Hange already there, having brought food and tea. Erwin stays as well when Levi doesn’t demand he leave this time.

It’s around seven at night when Erwin starts thinking about going to get the doctor and a medkit, that Levi needs the bandages changed again, when Levi speaks.

“Please tell me I can do once a day this time,” he says. His voice is flat, exhausted. He says it while looking down, at his lap.

Erwin looks at Hange. He sees her hesitate.

“I can’t fucking do that twice a day, Hange, please,” Levi says.

“If the wound keeps healing well,” Hange says, “then I’ll ask your doctor if you can go down to changing them once a day in a few days. Right now it has to be twice.”

Levi lets out a rough exhale, puts his head in his hands again. “Fucking great.”

Erwin waits a half hour longer, over which it appears Levi’s just tensing up more, getting more stressed, and then Erwin makes the excuse of getting more tea to leave.

He does come back with tea. He also comes back with the doctor.

It doesn’t go any better than the first time. Levi doesn’t break down in sobs after they’ve finished this time, but he does actually vomit. He insists on having a shower as well as brushing his teeth afterwards, though he comes back and drinks tea and they sit with him until it’s late and Levi kicks them out, claiming he’s going to sleep.

The next week is terrible. Changing the bandages gets only marginally better. When the doctor tells them that he can’t go down to once a day, that he absolutely has to keep doing twice a day, Levi throws a fit, breaks things, swears at them when they try to stop him. He hides from them only once again. They nearly have to restrain him once as well, get as far as calling the medics in, before Levi goes so pale that Erwin thinks he’s going to pass out, and finally says he’ll let them change it, he just needs a few minutes. It’s best when they’re able to get it over with quickly.

The anger that Levi had towards Erwin right after the cauterization fades and gets redirected at Hange. Erwin thinks it’s because she’s the one treating him. Levi hurls insults at them often, essentially has two moods over the next week: vicious, biting anger and silent, despairing misery. He’s not easy to be around, but both Erwin and Hange continue spending a lot of their time with him anyway.

He doesn’t spend much time out of his room, despite their attempts to get him outside, get him to go down to the mess hall for meals, to go interact with his squad. They start weaning him off the laudanum, only give him doses before changing the bandages. Erwin’s pretty sure the only times he sleeps are after getting a dose – the medication makes him tired, and Erwin’s sure that the dulled pain helps as well.

Erwin had hoped, if not really believed, that it would get easier for Levi, that he would get at least a little bit used to having the bandages changed, and it would stop scaring him so much. It doesn’t. A week later and every bandage changing is still a horrific ordeal, and Levi’s mood is only growing worse, the stress chipping away at him more and more.

A week after Levi’s arm gets sliced by his wire, it seems he hits his breaking point.

It’s a vague, nagging gut feeling that has Erwin staying with Levi late that night. It’s after he’s gotten the bandages changed, and Hange leaves to go to bed, or more likely to go work on titan research for a couple hours, and Erwin stays instead of also leaving.

Levi’s expression is blank. He’s calmed down from having it changed, but there is something very still about him tonight that has Erwin worrying without really knowing why. Erwin tries to get him to talk to him, about anything really, but Levi is silent. Erwin says he’s going to go make some tea. It’s really the only thing that Erwin knows of that seems to help Levi feel better.

Levi isn’t there when he comes back.

Erwin gets lucky. He only has to search for a few minutes before he stops a recruit and asks if he’s seen Captain Levi – he has, climbing the staircase that leads to the roof.

Erwin finds him up there, sitting on the edge of the roof, drinking liquor from a glass bottle.

He approaches cautiously, and then sits down next to Levi, looks out over the edge of the roof at the horizon. It’s dark out, but the moon is near full, and the sky clear, so it casts everything in a blue light.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Erwin says.

Levi says nothing. He takes another swig from the bottle.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking with the laudanum,” Erwin says.

Levi takes another drink in answer.

Erwin sighs. He looks back over at the landscape in front of him. They sit in the silence for another minute. Erwin hears distant laughter, the rustle of branches in the wind, the bottle when it scrapes the roof.

“It might make you feel better, if you’d talk to someone,” Erwin says, and isn’t sure at all that he should. It feels a gamble. “You can talk to me. I’ll listen.”

There’s another beat of silence. Levi doesn’t turn when he speaks, doesn’t look any different, keeps staring blankly out at the land in front of them. “Haven’t I gone through enough hells for you, Erwin?”

Erwin only looks at him, confused. He knows the moment he hears Levi’s voice that he is not in a good place.

“You should have let me fucking die,” Levi says, and then takes another long drink of liquor. He might still look apathetic but his voice almost shakes with the anger and resentment and bitter despair in his tone. “You should have let me fucking die out there instead of dragging me into this new circle of hell. I really thought it couldn’t get much worse, that I’d been through the worst of it – I’ve survived the underground, survived titans, seen the worst of humanity and what is worse than humanity, but you still managed to find me a new version of hell and drag me there once again, Erwin. Congratulations.”

Erwin feels his stomach sink with a kind of slowness. He looks at Levi, as Levi avoids looking at him, stares straight ahead, takes another drink.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting so much, Levi,” Erwin says.

In a fluid, explosive motion, Levi hurls the bottle of liquor off the roof, the bottle careening through the night air, to fall many meters away, the sharp noise of glass breaking muffled by the distance.

“I fucking hate you sometimes, Erwin,” Levi says.

“Yes,” Erwin says. “I’ve gathered that this past week.”

“You should have let me die,” Levi says. “I wish you’d have just let me die.” His voice is hard and angry and pained.

“Would you have let me die?” Erwin says.

Levi’s expression has gotten stained with anger too now. He still hasn’t looked at Erwin. “You’re not terrified of burns,” Levi says. “You haven’t had a wound cauterized before.”

“And if I had,” Erwin says, “would you have let me die?”

Levi doesn’t answer. He’s silent for another long minute, and Erwin doesn’t try to speak this time.

“I begged you not to,” Levi says. It comes out low, quiet. His voice is bitterly angry, betrayal and hurt.

“This won’t last forever, Levi,” Erwin says. “You will heal. You will get better and it will be over.”

“Yeah, and what the hell am I gonna do the next time I get cut, Erwin?” Levi says. “What do you think is gonna happen the next time I get hurt? It was awful before this – I’m gonna lose my fucking mind now.”

“You’ve only gotten seriously hurt a handful of times in the past three years, Levi,” Erwin says. “It’s not like it’s a regular occurrence. You’ll get through-”

Levi stands so quickly that Erwin almost doesn’t catch the movement, even though he’s looking right at him. Suddenly Levi is standing over him, on the edge of the roof, and his expression is so very far from apathetic this time.

“I fucking begged you not to, Erwin,” Levi says. “I would have done anything for you not to. I would have rather died and you fucking knew it, and you held me down and branded me instead while I fucking _cried_ and begged you not to.”

Levi remembers, sees it in front of him, overlaid, all at once. Staring up at Furlan’s face, finding his eyes, the desperation, _help me, don’t let them do this to me_. He hadn’t said the words out loud, hadn’t been able to say anything but to call his name, _Furlan_. Staring up at Erwin’s face, the blue of his eyes blurring with the blue of the sky as tears obscured his vision and the blood loss and panic made his head spin. The complete helplessness, raging fear. _This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening again_. Utter horror.

“You shit-brained fucking bastard, I wanted to die,” Levi says. He feels his eyes start burning. “You couldn’t have given me that? Haven’t I given you enough already?”

“Levi –”

“I’m losing my fucking mind,” Levi says. He brings his hands to his hair, hears his voice shake, but he sees nothing, stares blankly down over the edge of the roof, flashes of Erwin’s face, Furlan’s face, the light of the Kerosene torch, the orange point of the glowing poker. “Every time I sleep I see it, I wake up from the pain. My leg hurts – my fucking leg that healed a goddamned _decade_ ago. I swear to God I can feel it, Erwin, I can feel it burning.”

His chest is tight and his body hot and he sees fire and faces. He smells burning flesh. “If I had known what you were going to do to me, I would have jumped into the titan’s mouth myself.” Levi takes a shuddering breath, fists his fingers in his hair. He lets out an abrupt, deranged laugh. “You knew how scared I am of being held in place. You knew about my leg and the burn. You knew how fucking awful changing bandages is for me, you knew how absolutely goddamned terrified I am of being burned, of getting cut and being burned again – you fucking _knew_ , Erwin, you _knew._ I _told_ you. I told you and you _knew_ and–”

There are arms around him before Levi sees anything, before he registers Erwin standing, stepping to him. _I trusted you_ , he wants to say. _I trusted you and you still did this to me_. Arms around him and Levi’s face is wet and he’s shaking. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth, feels a sob wrack up his chest and doesn’t let it get past his throat. He feels fabric against the side of his face, feels Erwin’s arms tighten around him.

“Breathe,” Erwin says. “Just breathe, Levi.”

_I fucking hate you_ , Levi thinks. He can’t get the remnants of horror and panic to leave his body. He’s making a scene, he’s embarrassing himself, he thinks, and yet he doesn’t care, is still so bitterly upset, unstable and uncontrolled. He can’t think straight, thinks he really is going mad.

“That’s better,” Erwin says, when Levi’s breathing slows a bit. It makes him feel like a child and Levi grits his teeth some more.

Erwin doesn’t move, so Levi doesn’t move, just stands there, Erwin’s arms around him, as his breathing slowly steadies.

“Let’s go inside now,” Erwin says. “I’ll make some tea.”

Erwin insists on Levi sleeping in the bed, even though Levi usually sleeps in a chair, and even though Erwin also insists on staying with Levi that night.

“You need rest, real rest,” Erwin says, keeps insisting, and finally Levi huffs and lies down in bed, staring at the ceiling. _Fine, get a crick in your neck, fuck up your back, not my problem._ Erwin sleeps slumped in Levi’s chair and Levi spends most of the night staring at the ceiling.

They don’t talk more that night. Erwin says nothing to defend himself, nothing to rationalize his decision, even though Levi knows he doesn’t feel guilty, doesn’t regret it. It’s annoying. Levi wants Erwin to defend himself, wants an argument now that he’s started it, wants more opportunity to yell, to hurt. It’s a vicious part of him, a hurting part of him. Yet Erwin doesn’t seem phased by it at all.

Erwin stays the next morning until Hange arrives. Levi has stopped going to eat breakfast before changing the bandages a while ago. In his clearer moments, he’d rather get it over with first thing in the morning, because otherwise the anticipation becomes unbearable. In his less clear moments, he tries to put it off as long as possible anyway.

They change the bandages. It hurts. It makes him panic. It’s as shit as always. Tears form in his eyes halfway through, when he feels like he’s dying and his heart is beating so hard it’s painful and he can’t convince himself he’s not being burned all over again. He’s still using a bite. It’s not as painful as it was a week ago but Levi swears he can feel his skin peeling off with the bandages pulled back, swears he can feel the tip of that burning knife on his skin again.

Afterwards, Hange stays for a while, when Erwin leaves. She stays even as Levi ignores her entirely, tells her to leave. Eventually he gets fed up and drives her out of his room. There’s a knock on his door not ten minutes later.

It’s Mike. Mike asks him some questions about the training that he had planned for his squad. Then he asks him about some of the new soldiers, about their strengths and weaknesses, about who he thinks they’ll work well with – Mike is helping reorganize some of the squads. It’s about the most he’s ever heard Mike talk in one conversation, and it’s odd enough that Levi thinks it must be important, so he gives his attention. He leaves around midday.

Petra arrives with his lunch only fifteen minutes later. Then she stays for a bit, chatters while Levi only vaguely pays attention. His arm starts hurting worse. They give him laudanum before changing the bandages, and his morning dose is wearing off. His temper grows thinner.

Petra leaves when Hange arrives. Levi wants to be left alone, tells Hange as much, starts yelling when Hange won’t leave. When she finally does go, he is left in peace for only ten minutes before Eld shows up.

“Get out,” Levi says, the second he opens the door.

“I brought tea, Captain,” Eld says.

“Out,” Levi says.

Eld places the tea on Levi’s desk. He opens his mouth.

“ _Out_ , Eld.”

Eld touches the back of his neck in an almost nervous gesture. “Ah, I just have a question, Captain, about our current training and –”

“Ask Mike,” Levi says. He’d just had an hour conversation with him about training regimes, including for Levi’s own squad.

“Well, yes, but I wanted to ask –”

“Eld, get out of my goddamned room,” Levi says.

“Yeah, of course, Captain,” Eld says, hands up, taking a couple steps back, and then he pauses, and Levi is going to scream. “Hey, you haven’t –”

“I may currently be an invalid but last I checked I’m still a goddamned Captain, now get out of my fucking room, Eld, before I court marshal you for insubordination,” Levi says.

“Ah, okay,” Eld says, and finally leaves.

Five minutes later Petra is back, and Levi does scream.

Erwin is in his office, going to go to dinner soon, when his door flies open to slam against the wall. Levi stands in the doorway.

He strides in quickly, and Erwin assumes a blank expression as Levi jabs a finger at him.

“What the fuck are you playing at, Erwin?”

“I’m sorry?” Erwin says.

“I can’t get a fucking minute by myself,” Levi says, “I had to threaten Eld with insubordination before he would leave, what the hell have you done to my squad?”

“Maybe they’re simply concerned about you,” Erwin says, “and wanted to come by and see you.”

“That is horse shit, Erwin – why is there a fucking Levi parade today?” Levi slams his hand down flat on Erwin’s desk. His cup of pens rattles.

Erwin sighs. “I just thought it might be good for you to have some company today,” Erwin says.

“I don’t want company. I want to be left alone,” Levi says. “So call off this bullshit already.”

“I really think it might be better for you to be around people right now, at least for a few days,” Erwin says.

“What?” Levi says. Erwin takes in a breath. “Well you thought wrong,” Levi says, “so go tell my squad and Hange and Mike and whoever else you have lined up that you were wrong before I throw one of them out a window.”

Erwin winces. “Levi, I just… I am… concerned, after our conversation last night. I just think you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“And what the fuck about our conversation last night made you think I wanted an entourage?”

Erwin takes a deep breath. Well, he had anticipated this would happen. He’d just hoped that maybe they could get through at least one day before Levi got fed up. “Levi, I don’t want you to be alone right now,” Erwin says, a little firmer. “I thought this was preferable to asking you to stay in medical for a few days.”

Levi’s eyes widen. “What?” he says. “I fucking hate medical, why the hell would you want me to stay there? I thought you wanted to make me feel better, asshole, what the hell –”

“For a suicide watch, Levi,” Erwin says.

Levi just stares at him for a moment, a look of sudden bewilderment cutting through the annoyance in an almost comical way for a second, but it is very quickly replaced by more frustration and anger. “What the fuck, Erwin?” Levi says. “I’m not gonna fucking _kill myself_ , Shit-brows, fucking hell, what are you on?”

“You spent the better part of last night telling me that you wish you were dead,” Erwin says, as calmly as he can manage, as steady and nonjudgmental as he can. “I was concerned.”

“Yeah, from an injury I got a week ago and because I didn’t want to get fucking _branded_ – it’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it?”

“You were sitting out on the edge of the roof telling me –”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Erwin, it’s three stories tall, I wasn’t planning on _jumping_ ,” Levi says. “You really think I’m that stupid? Jump off a building just to break my legs and wind up back in medical? Maybe if I was really lucky one of my bones would break through the skin and I could get _another_ wound cauterized.”

Erwin runs a hand down his face. “You’ve been very stressed and obviously suffering a great deal, and frankly, not coping with it well, and I am _concerned_ that this could lead you to do something you would otherwise not.”

“Not _coping_ well, how the fuck you want me to cope, Erwin?”

“I don’t know, Levi, whatever will make you feel better. Talk to me more, talk to Hange, spend some time with your squad instead of isolating yourself in your room all day, find things to distract yourself with, books, cards. And I know changing the bandages is awful for you, Levi, you are allowed to be upset, allowed to cry, to ask for comfort when Hange changes them – it’s not a weakness, Levi.”

The frown on Levi’s face tightens. “None of that shit is going to make it better, Erwin,” Levi says.

“I wish you’d at least try it,” Erwin says. “Maybe you’ll be surprised.”

“I don’t think so,” Levi says. “Now call off your babysitters, I’m not going to kill myself.”

“Levi,” Erwin says.

“I mean it, Erwin,” Levi says.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Levi’s expression fiery and challenging and Erwin’s hard and steadfast.

“You promise me that you are not thinking of hurting yourself?” Erwin says.

Levi’s eye twitches. “No, Erwin, I am not going to hurt myself.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Erwin says, and Levi is confused for a moment. “I asked if you are _thinking_ of hurting yourself.”

“What’s the difference?” Levi says.

“Are you thinking about hurting yourself, Levi?” Erwin says. His voice finally softens, his expression wavering slightly, concern bleeding in. “Even if you won’t do it, have you been thinking about it?”

Levi’s jaw tightens. “I’m fine, Erwin,” he says, and then he turns and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic somehow just keeps getting longer. Well, there will be at least one more chapter.
> 
> I'm trying to keep Levi from getting too OOC while still showing just how much he's struggling right now. Would love your opinions on that - I tend to waver on how much emotion he should show, especially with tears. It feels inherently out of character for him and yet if he did have a fear as strong as the one in this story, I don't really see how it wouldn't happen, or at least I feel it's fairly well justified.
> 
> Thoughts? Again, I'd love your opinions. As a note, there will still be a happy ending here! It shouldn't get too much more depressing than it is now - things will start looking up soon.


	5. Cracked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin and Hange continue to try to help Levi deal with the aftermath. Levi is not dealing very well.

Erwin is not feeling particularly reassured after their conversation, but he refrains from sending anyone else up to check on Levi. Instead, he meets Hange in Levi’s room after dinner, bringing food and tea with him as he always does. Hange changes the bandages, and then they eat. Levi is quiet, doesn’t calm down well. Erwin stays until Levi drives him out.

Erwin knows that changing the bandages has to be getting less painful, but it sure does not appear to get much easier for Levi. He has a particularly bad day a few days later. Erwin doesn’t know why, but changing the bandages in the morning is harder than normal. It’s clear the moment they walk in that Levi is having a bad day. He’s fidgety and visibly more anxious than usual, and he looks like he’s gotten no sleep at all. He puts off having it changed, deflects Hange’s gentle prompting at first, then flat out refuses to let her start. They spend the better part of a half an hour cajoling him into allowing her to change them. He cries during it. He doesn’t normally anymore, usually just shakes and yells around the bite, eyes watering but the dampness not falling either. He lets out a few sobs this time, can’t calm down afterwards, keeps hyperventilating, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes, gasping, until he grabs at his leg, his thigh, pressing roughly at it with his hand, then curling his fingers. Erwin realizes that he’s pressing against the scar, from his previous cauterization. Erwin feels sick.

It is the second time though, later that evening, which really goes badly. Levi again looks terribly anxious from the start, eyes red, staring down at his lap, as soon as they get there. But this time he doesn’t deflect, doesn’t argue, just sits there and shakes his head when Hange asks if he’s ready. He starts trembling, and then he brings his hands up to his face, and Erwin feels his stomach knot up and he looks across at Hange, meets her eyes, sees the same helplessness he feels mirrored back at him.

They say all the things they always say when he’s having a difficult day. They tell him it will be over quickly, that afterwards he’ll feel better, that they’ll get him some tea and he can rest, that it will only take a few minutes and then it’ll be over, that he’s okay, that it’ll be okay. They try to get him to breathe deeply, try to help him calm down. When that doesn’t work, Erwin offers to read for a bit. They tell him they’ll take a break, give him time to calm down. When he’s just as anxious after fifteen minutes of Erwin reading smoothly, Erwin stops and looks at Hange again.

It has rarely taken this long. When it has, this is around the time that Hange (because Erwin is weak, and it makes him feel sick, and somehow he can never make the call) will start threatening the medics, start threatening to have him restrained if he doesn’t start cooperating. But Levi isn’t being uncooperative this time. He’s not yelling or arguing or throwing insults. He’s scared. He’s just scared, and it’s almost as if he’s just too exhausted, too worn out, to put up the angry defiance this time.

“Levi,” Hange says finally, “we need to start now. We’ll just get it over with now, so you can stop feeling so anxious.”

Levi shudders, turns away from her, shakes his head. His head hangs down, hair almost obscuring his face. He touches his arm, where the bandages are, covers it with his fingers.

“We need to do it now,” Hange says, voice both gentle and firm.

When she reaches for him, Levi flinches back. “Not today,” he says.

“Levi –” Erwin starts.

“I’ll do it in the morning, it won’t kill me to skip just one time,” Levi says.

“Levi, we have to,” Hange says.

“Not today,” he says again. There is enough desperation in his voice that Erwin wants to vomit. “Just once, Hange.”

It won’t be just once. Erwin knows that if they skip once, Levi will ask again, will start asking many times, and despite what he’d said, skipping even just once still raised the risk of infection. He’s not healed yet, and until he is, it can still get infected. It will impede the healing process anyway, not to change them regularly.

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Hange says.

Levi grips Erwin’s hand tightly, lying on his back, face turned away, and a sob wracks up his chest the second Hange touches his arm, before she even starts unwrapping it. She makes it only a quarter way through when Levi moves suddenly, when he jerks away, shaking his head, the bite falling from his mouth.

“Stop,” he says. His voice cracks, shakes. “Stop, _stop_.”

“Okay, Levi, just breathe,” Erwin says. He rubs Levi’s shoulder. Hange pauses. He’s asked for breaks before, though they usually just try to get it done as quickly as possible. “Deep breaths, Levi,” Erwin says. “You’re fine. It’s okay.”

But Levi lets out a sob, pulls his arm in tighter. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “no, fuck, no more.”

“It’s almost over, Levi,” Erwin says. “You’re alright. You’re going to be fine.”

“ _No_ ,” Levi says. He’s never fought them in the middle of it like this. Erwin feels a dual sinking and pricking fear. “No, I can’t, no more.”

“I’m already halfway through,” Hange says. “Just a bit more, Levi.”

“You’re not,” Levi says. He’s breathing so fast, his voice so pained. It’s true – she’s only a quarter way unwrapping it, and then she’ll still need to wrap it back up again, though that’s not as painful.

“Levi, it’s okay,” Erwin says. “I know it hurts and you’re scared, but it will be all over soon.”

Levi lets out a noise through his teeth, shakes his head again. Hange reaches for his arm again. Erwin doesn’t think giving Levi more time right now will result in him calming down, and apparently she agrees. He thinks it will just make things worse, will drag them out longer, will let Levi work into even more of a panic. Hange takes his arm and Levi pulls away again, lets out a scared, pained noise.

Erwin moves over. When Levi pulls away from Hange, Erwin wraps his arms around him, draws him forward, so that Levi leans against him. Erwin holds him while he cries, shakes. He’s not restraining him, but he is blocking him from moving farther away.

“No,” Levi says again. Hange grabs his wrist in one hand, starts unwrapping bandages with the other. “ _N-no_ ,” Levi says.

He yells against Erwin’s chest, lets out an awful hitching scream, then stuttered groans. Erwin rubs his back and Levi grips at his arm, fingers digging in.

“It’s done,” Erwin says once Hange finishes. “It’s over. It’s all done.”

Levi shakes. “Fuck,” he says. He pulls away a moment later, and Erwin looks down. The look on Levi’s face is lost, eyes unfocused and red, expression anxious and pained. He brings his hands to his face, tilts his head down. “ _Fuck_.”

“Try to breathe, Le –” Hange starts.

Levi moves so quickly that it startles both of them. He’s up off the bed and out the door before they can even react. Erwin feels a sharp shot of alarm race up his spine. Both he and Hange are up and following Levi a moment later.

Levi’s not wearing shoes, doesn’t have a jacket. The bandages stand out, stark white against his skin. He turns and takes the stairs to the roof.

By the time Erwin reaches it, opens the door leading out to the roof, Levi is sitting down by the edge, head tilted down, fingers digging into his thigh. Erwin approaches slowly, hears Hange’s footsteps behind him.

“Levi,” Erwin says.

“Fuck off,” Levi says. His voice is angry, bitter, but it sounds wet too.

“Levi, please talk to me,” Erwin says.

“I don’t want to talk, I want you to leave me the fuck alone,” Levi says.

Erwin does not. He sits down on the roof next to Levi.

“I’m not going to jump,” Levi says, snaps. “Just fuck off, Erwin, give me a fucking minute, will you?”

“You don’t need to be alone, Levi,” Erwin says. “You –”

Levi suddenly turns to him with a vicious snarl on his face. There is something unhinged in his eyes, wild. “What the hell do you not understand about fuck off, Erwin? Do you just want to watch me humiliate myself some more? Can’t you just let me be for one fucking minute?”

“Levi, you’re not –” Erwin says, “there is nothing humiliating about what you’re going through. You lived through something very traumatic, _twice_ , and you are allowed to be upset, allowed to have bad days and to struggle, it’s okay –”

“Shut up,” Levi says.

“No, Levi, you shouldn’t think of yourself that way, that’s – it’s awful to hear, you’re having a hard time and –”

“I’m not having a hard time!” Levi says. “I’m having the worst time of my fucking life – I haven’t felt this shit since Isabel and Furlan died. I just want it to be over already, I’d do fucking anything for it to be over.”

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Erwin says. “I –”

“No, you’re not,” Levi says. “I told you to stop. I told you to fucking stop.”

“I’m – we had to get it done with. It was just getting worse, Levi. I thought it would be better to just get it over with –”

“Not today, idiot,” Levi says.

“Levi,” Erwin says. There is a mix of surety and sympathy in his voice this time. “I wasn’t going to let you die. You can’t ask that of me, Levi.”

“Why? Because I’m Humanity’s Strongest? Because you couldn’t let a soldier like me die in the field?” Levi says.

“No, because I care about you, Levi,” Erwin says. “I wasn’t going to stand back and watch you die, you can’t –”

“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have done this to me,” Levi says. It’s biting and harsh and Erwin feels it like a cut through his skin. “You wouldn’t have put me through this shit again, wouldn’t have burned me again, let them press that fucking knife – do you have any idea how agonizing that was? Do you have any idea how long it felt, screaming while they burned me _over_ and _over_ again – I passed out last time, I passed out after just a few seconds, and now I remember, I remember every fucking second of that knife on my arm, trying to get away, to make it _stop_.”

“I’m so sorry, Levi,” Erwin says. “But I don’t regret what I did. You’re here because of it.”

“I don’t want to be,” Levi says.

“I know,” Erwin says. “But I’m very glad you are, Levi.”

“Fuck you,” Levi says.

“Things will get better, Levi,” Erwin says. “You will feel better. You’re going to get through this.”

“I don’t care,” Levi says. “That doesn’t help right now.”

“I think it might,” Erwin says. “If you’d let yourself think about it. About how this is temporary.”

“It’s not,” Levi says. “I told you. Getting burned once left me fucking terrified of it happening again, what do you think it happening a second time will do? Because I’m pretty fucking sure the nightmares aren’t going to magically disappear, pretty fucking sure this is all going to stick around.”

“It will get better, Levi,” Erwin says. “I won’t pretend it won’t stay with you to some degree, Levi, but it will get better than it is now.”

Levi doesn’t look at him. He’s quiet for a few long moments, and Erwin feels some of the tension in the air relax again. Erwin looks down at where Levi is still digging his fingers harshly into his thigh.

“Your leg hurts?” Erwin says, voice soft, remembering what Levi said a few days ago.

“Yeah,” Levi says.

Levi seems to relax slowly. Erwin sits with him and doesn’t say anything else. When he turns, he sees that Hange has gone, although he knows that she followed them up there. They’ve just been sitting in silence for a while. Erwin waits until Levi’s calmed down, until his shoulders have untensed and his expression gone just a bit softer, impassive rather than strained.

“Tell me about the nightmares,” Erwin says.

Levi lets out a rush of breath. He says nothing for several moments, and Erwin thinks he’s just going to ignore him, before he speaks. “I can’t move,” he says, “I can’t move at all, and I’m watching it come near me, something burning, sometimes the poker – the fireplace poker they used the first time – sometimes the knife, sometimes a torch or just a ball of flame. I can’t scream, I can hardly talk. I try to beg them not to, and I watch it get closer, the fire or the hot metal. And then they press it on my skin somewhere. You’re not supposed to be able to feel pain in dreams, but I always can. It hurts, and sometimes it keeps going for a while first, they keep pressing it over and over, and I beg them not to in between, beg them to stop, and sometimes I wake up right away.”

His voice is monotone, flat. Erwin nods. “Would it help,” he says, “if someone was there when you woke up?”

“No,” Levi says, but he pauses too long first.

“I could have a cot brought in,” Erwin says. “I could sleep in your room for a few days, a couple weeks, if it would help.”

“No,” Levi says.

They sit on the roof for a bit longer. When they do go back down, Erwin again insists on staying in Levi’s room for the night, sleeping in his chair while Levi takes the bed. He doesn’t sleep very much.

The next morning is better. Or at least, changing the bandages goes better. They’re able to get it over with quickly and Levi isn’t as anxious as he was the night before. Erwin’s not so sure that Levi’s really feeling any better though. He’s quiet and withdrawn, an utterly blank look on his face. He may not be as anxious, but it’s the same silent look that had Erwin feeling worried the night before Levi first went up to the roof.

Erwin doesn’t want to leave. When he does, he catches Eld and asks him to check up on Levi later that afternoon. He makes sure Hange is still planning on bringing Levi lunch.

When Erwin goes back to Levi’s room that night, dinner in hand, he finds Levi lying on his back in bed, his eyes glazed. He doesn’t react when Erwin enters. Erwin freezes next to his bed.

“Levi?” he says.

Levi’s eyes slip closed, half-lidded. “Mm.”

Erwin turns a bottle on the bedside table to read the label. “Levi, are you drunk?”

“Don’get drunk,” Levi says.

Erwin just stares at him for a moment. Then he looks back at Levi’s bedside table, then over at Levi’s desk. He opens the desk drawer, finds neatly stacked paper, a ruler, some pens. He starts opening up cabinets then, all while Levi doesn’t move, says nothing. He finds the vial of laudanum in one of his cabinets, lined up neatly next to another bottle of alcohol and some tins of tea leaves.

Levi should not have a vial of laudanum. Soldiers are not generally allowed to take them out of medical. Hange usually brings him his dose – she has medical clearance even though she’s not technically a medic or doctor. Levi must have stolen it.

Erwin picks up the bottle. It’s only half full and Erwin’s alarm heightens drastically. “Levi, how much of this did you take?” he says.

“Hm?” Levi says.

Erwin walks back over to his bed with the vial in hand. “Levi, how much laudanum did you take?”

“Spoonful,” Levi says.

Levi has definitely taken more than a spoonful, Erwin thinks. Just as Levi can’t get drunk, they’ve found that laudanum seems to have a lesser effect on him. They’ve had to give him a higher dose than they otherwise would. Erwin has never seen him look so out of it. The only time they would normally give a soldier as much as Levi has clearly taken is during either major surgery or if they were dying.

“Levi,” Erwin says. “How much did you take?”

Levi lets out a long sigh. “Two spoonful.”

Erwin feels his stomach drop. That is a lot. Normally the tincture is given as a number of _drops_.

“Levi,” Erwin says. If he has taken more than that –

“Hm,” he says.

Erwin needs to get him to medical. He needs to get a doctor. Even two spoonful’s is a lot, and Erwin has no idea if it’s enough to be dangerous.

“Erwin,” Levi says. Erwin looks back down, where Levi’s eyes are still closed. And then Levi smiles. It’s small and makes Levi’s expression look peaceful and wrong at the same time, and Erwin thinks it might be the most heartbreaking thing he has ever seen. “M’ arm doesn’t hurt,” Levi says.

Erwin grabs a soldier in the halls and sends them for a doctor. The doctor checks Levi’s pulse, asks him a couple of questions which Levi answers in slow, slurred speech. The doctor shrugs at Erwin afterwards.

“He’s still responsive, so he should be fine, though it appears he’s taken an exceedingly high dose,” the doctor says. He frowns. “I’m concerned he’s not more affected, actually. Does he have a history of abusing it?”

“I don’t think he’s ever taken it before,” Erwin says. “I think he just has a naturally high tolerance.”

“Hm, it’s possible,” the doctor says.

Hange arrives as the doctor’s leaving. Erwin sits on a chair in Levi’s room with his head in his hands, but Hange just sighs. “Honestly,” she says, “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t try something like this sooner.”

Erwin supposes she has a point. She sighs and starts pulling out bandages. “Well,” she says, “might as well get it done now.”

Levi stirs again when she takes his arm. His eyes open and he looks over at her without moving. His eyes trail to the new bandages and he blinks, then frowns. He starts to cringe. “No,” he says.

“Shh, this’ll be easy,” Hange says.

Levi makes a noise that Erwin doesn’t think he’s ever heard out of him before, something scared and small. Erwin sits down on Levi’s other side. Hange begins unwrapping the bandages and Levi winces, then shuts his eyes. He lets out a whimper.

“You’re okay,” Hange says. “Almost done.”

It is still not enough to block all of the pain then, Erwin surmises. But that is all Levi does, just wince and turn away, let out a few unhappy noises. Hange finishes changing them, and then he relaxes quickly again. It is so incredibly different, so incredibly easier than it normally is. Erwin just keeps looking down at Levi for another few moments, almost stunned.

“And he definitely cannot have this much all the time?” Erwin says.

Hange grimaces. “You increase the chance of addiction the more you take and the more often. Levi’s already going to be taking it for a while. It’s really not a good idea. And either way, this dose is too high – he’s nearly unresponsive, even if it’s not overly dangerous I wouldn’t give it to him.” She pauses, looks down at him, then back up at Erwin, her expression set. “He’s going to do this again.”

Erwin has a cot brought in. He sleeps on Levi’s floor. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Levi already awake, sitting up in his bed, reading a book. When Erwin sits up, Levi doesn’t react.

“You can allow me to set up a schedule of Mike, Hange, your squad, and I without argument, or you can stay in medical,” Erwin says. “One week minimum. Soldiers who steal laudanum are generally cut off from it altogether, but I will make an exception. You do it again and I’ll be forced to comply with medical and you won’t be allowed it at all any longer.”

Levi flips a page of his book. “Guess I’ll go to your shitty office today.”

Erwin lets out a long breath. It is less of an argument than he was expecting. He pauses for a moment, trying to gather the right words. Levi continues reading, still doesn’t look up.

“Why, Levi?” Erwin says.

Levi’s eyes rise slowly, look up at him over the book. It’s a dead-man look, too despondent, too dark to be called blank, yet it’s not a glare either, is too apathetic for that. “What do you want me to say, Erwin?” Levi says.

“Were you trying to overdose?” Erwin says.

Levi sighs. He looks back down at his book. “You seem to think that I’d be very inept at killing myself, Erwin. If I were trying to overdose I’d take a hell of a lot more than two spoonful’s.”

“Tell me why then,” Erwin says.

Levi lets the book drop. He stares at Erwin with that dead look again, but his voice is more forceful this time. “Because I was afraid, and I knew it would make it better. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Why now?” Erwin says. “Levi, you don’t know how much will be too much, you could have died – I need you to talk to me, Levi, tell me what you were thinking, why you turned to this.”

Levi’s eyebrows draw in, and his expression starts turning into something like a snarl. “What do you want me to say, Erwin? That I was thinking that I couldn’t go through that again, that I’m at the end of my rope, that I just can’t fucking deal anymore? Do you just want to hear me say it, Erwin, make me say it? Fine, I was terrified and weak and I gave in because I just don’t fucking care anymore.”

Erwin can’t help the deep frown that folds his lips, the ache that starts in his chest. “I would never think you weak for this, Levi,” he says, his voice soft, quiet. “I’m very worried about you, and I’m trying to find a way to help.”

“You can get me some more laudanum,” Levi says. It’s deadpan, a recourse of humor, and Levi’s mouth turns up in the perversion of a smile.

Erwin lets out a long breath. “We’re going to talk about this,” he says. “This can’t happen again, and we need to find a better way to deal with it.” Erwin stands up from the cot that he’d been sitting on. He grabs the chair at Levi’s desk instead, and pulls it over facing Levi’s bed where he sits against the headboard. “Let’s start with what helps, what makes it better?”

“Erwin,” Levi says. He has an unamused, verging on surly look.

“We are having this conversation,” Erwin says. “We’re not leaving until we come up with some kind of plan to help you cope.”

His tone is hard and Levi lets out a huff and crosses his arms, leaning back. “Fine, Commander, if that’s what this is.”

Erwin ignores the comment. “What helps?” he repeats, “anything, even small things. Tea, right? It helps you calm down afterwards?”

“Yes,” Levi says.

“Would you like to drink it beforehand too?” Erwin says.

Levi shrugs.

“Alright, tell me what else helps,” Erwin says. “I’m assuming having it be me and Hange? Having someone’s hand to grip onto? You seem to prefer doing it in your room.” When Levi just shrugs again, makes a noncommittal hum, Erwin keeps going. “Would it be better if a doctor changed the bandages, and then both me and Hange could help try to distract you and keep you calm?”

“No,” Levi says.

“Alright,” Erwin says, “what if I read to you while Hange changed the bandages, or we played cards through it, or you read something out loud? Something to distract you more?”

“Have you seen me?” Levi says, “I’m not gonna be able to play cards or read, Erwin.”

“Tell me what the worst part is,” Erwin says, switching tactics. “Tell me what is hardest?”

Levi tenses a little more. “Unwrapping them,” he says. It is certainly the most painful part of the process, Erwin thinks, but that’s not really what he meant.

“What about it?” Erwin says. “What’s going through your head?”

Levi glares at him for a long moment. “It hurts most,” he says.

“What are you thinking though,” Erwin says.

“I’m thinking ‘oh shit this is fucking awful,’” Levi says, voice going loud with irritation.

“No, really,” Erwin says. “Describe it to me, Levi. If I can understand what’s hardest for you then maybe I can find a way to help.”

Levi’s teeth set. “It reminds me of before,” he says.

“When you had the wound cauterized?”

“Yes.”

“Just this past time?”

“No. Both.”

Erwin pauses. He remembers how Levi reacted when he’d gotten his shoulder burned, when he’d first stepped into medical with Hange and him. “Do you…” Erwin says, pauses. “Do you see things?” he says, as calmly, neutrally as possible. “The way that some of our soldiers will see traumatic sights again, will see titans or their killed comrades inside the walls?”

“I’m not delusional, Erwin,” Levi says.

“I don’t think you’re delusional, Levi,” Erwin says. “But you said your leg has been hurting. It’s clearly not a physical pain. And you said you thought you could feel your arm burning. So do you see things too sometimes?”

“I’m not hallucinating,” Levi says, just as sharp.

Erwin thinks about how Levi’s eyes had gone foggy, how he’d started saying he didn’t want the bandages changed, that first time he burned his shoulder, even though he had no bandages on, how he’d seemed annoyed and clear headed when Hange asked him if he knew where he was though. “Do you think it’s happening again though?” Erwin says. “You told me before, when you got cut while outside the walls, that when we poured alcohol on the wound, you thought you were being burned again. Do you think that you’re being burned again, when we change the bandages?”

Levi’s expression is tight, angry. “It reminds me of it,” he says.

“It reminds you to the point where it feels like it’s happening again though?” Erwin says. “To the point where you almost forget where you are?”

Levi’s teeth set and he says nothing.

Erwin nods. “Okay,” he says. It’s a start.

Erwin pries a few more answers from Levi, forces him to keep talking about it until all he’s getting are gritted-teeth, one-word responses. Hange arrives and Erwin decides it will have to do for now. They change the bandages and it goes averagely. Levi stays in Erwin’s office with him while Erwin works. Levi sits in Erwin’s chair, cleans his office, picks through some of the books on his shelf. After lunch, Erwin hands him off to Hange. He spends a while trying to figure out what to say to Levi’s squad. When he’d approached Eld and Petra before, he’d told them Levi was unwell and that he thought he needed more company. He’d made it clear that he’d like him to be left alone as little as possible.

Erwin’s unsure of whether he should try to make up something or to be more direct. But he doesn’t want Levi left alone this time, not for even five minutes, and he wants to make it clear that they are to stay with him no matter what he says, and to immediately get himself or someone else if they can’t do that. He spends the better part of the morning trying to find a tactful way of imparting that level of urgency without point blank saying he’s afraid Levi will hurt himself.

Eventually he goes somewhere in the middle. “He’s refusing to stay in medical,” he tells Eld, with no preclude, no further explanation. “But he can’t be left alone. You have orders from me to make sure that doesn’t happen, and if he tries to throw you out or leave then you have grounds to refuse, and if that’s not possible you are to immediately get myself, squad leader Hange, or squad leader Mike.”

Eld looks confused and a bit worried but he doesn’t hesitate. “Yes, Commander,” he says.

“I trust you to impart this onto your teammates,” Erwin says, “I’ll let you know when I need someone to stay with him.”

Erwin spends most of the day thinking over what he’d pulled from Levi, trying to come up with anything that could help. He talks with Hange, asks again if they really can’t give Levi anymore laudanum, asks her opinion on the near-hallucinations that he thinks Levi is experiencing. He mulls it all over. While he is going to make sure that Levi is not alone at any point in the near future, he is not so naïve to not realize that if Levi really wants to steal more laudanum, there is not anything Erwin can do to stop him, short of cuffing him to a bed in medical and posting a twenty-four hour watch. (Or locking him in the cells.) He is really hoping that it does not come to that.

It only takes until mid afternoon for Levi to start feeling like a child being shepherded between babysitters.

With Erwin it’s not so bad. Erwin does work quietly, doesn’t force anymore conversation, and leaves Levi to his own devices. Hange is worse. As usual, she never stops talking – she seems to take his presence as an opportunity to narrate everything she’s doing. He grows irritated very quickly, and the only thing stopping him from barging out ten minutes after he’s sitting in her office is Erwin’s promise of a suicide watch in medical if he doesn’t cooperate with this shitty tag-team surveillance.

It’s a relief when Petra and Oluo appear, and Levi immediately declares that they are going back to his bedroom. They follow behind him as he walks, making a couple of objections that he doesn’t listen to, except to bark a “keep up” at them.

They get to his room and Levi closes the door behind them and then goes to his chair and sits down at his desk. Petra and Oluo stand by the door awkwardly and Levi’s eye twitches.

“Captain –” Oluo starts.

“Silence,” Levi says.

Levi ignores them for the rest of the time that they’re there, just sits on his chair and closes his eyes. He doesn’t really sleep, but he lets his mind wander and his thoughts go hazy. Petra and Oluo are, blissfully, quiet.

Mike arrives to relieve them. Levi looks up when he arrives, shutting the door behind him. “So I hear you got grounded,” he says.

Levi glares but Mike steps forward and then drops a deck of cards on Levi’s desk. Levi looks down at it and then back up at Mike. Mike drags over the second chair in the corner of the room, pauses, and then sits and picks the cards up again.

They play a couple rounds. When Levi says he’s done, Mike just nods. “Sure,” he says, and puts the cards away again. Levi moves to his bed and lies down.

“I’m going to take a nap,” he says.

“Sure,” Mike says, in a way that tells Levi that he knows Levi isn’t about to sleep. He says nothing else though, and Levi lies down and stares at the ceiling for a while. He still wishes he were alone, can’t quite relax with another person in the room – it makes him twitchy, knowing Mike is just _there_ , knowing he’s there specifically to watch him.

Levi was not surprised at all at the repercussions to his decision. He’d known when he’d stolen the laudanum that there was going to be hell to pay for it – he just hadn’t cared. It hadn’t felt like a choice – it had felt like the only possible option. He couldn’t endure another bandage changing, knew that they wouldn’t let him skip, and then he’d started thinking about how they’d hold him down if he couldn’t force himself to let them change it – and that had really terrified him. That he could go back to that place where he’s sobbing, screaming, begging for it to stop, only for it to keep going anyway. 

And he’d do just about anything to avoid going through that again.

So he lies on his bed with Mike sitting across the room because he’d rather eat shit than get tied down to a bed in Medical for a week. He’s half convinced he’ll actually die of a heart attack if they make him change the bandages without any laudanum at all. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does anymore. It’s been almost two weeks. Levi’s not stupid. He knows if he could just calm the fuck down it wouldn’t be so bad. When he panics he just makes the pain worse, at least makes it seem worse. But there’s nothing he can really do about that.

“I want to try something different tonight,” Erwin says when he sets the tea down on Levi’s desk.

Hange is already there, sitting next Levi, and Levi keeps moving his hands, can’t stay still. Levi is scared. The evening bandage changings are always harder. His leg has already started to prick, to begin to burn, and he’s torn between yelling at Hange to just fucking get it over with and trying to delay this as long as possible, to ask to skip just this once again. He knows how awful it’s going to be, he knows he’ll feel like shit afterwards.

“What the fuck do you mean, different?” he says.

“I want to try going a little slower,” Erwin says.

“When the fuck has slow been good?” Levi says. They usually try to get it done fast, get it over with as quickly as possible, and Levi’s a little thrown by the suggestion. He does not want this to take any longer than it has to.

“Humor me,” Erwin says. “If you hate it then we never have to do it again.”

Levi clicks his tongue. “Not in the mood for one of your shitty gambles, Erwin,” he says.

“I think this will help,” Erwin says.

Levi’s half inclined to tell Erwin to go fuck himself and his _help,_ but he also feels ready to jump out the window to avoid changing the bandages, so if there is something that might make it even a fraction easier, he’s willing to try.

“Fine, hurry the fuck up,” Levi says.

“I want you to turn towards me,” Erwin says. Levi complies, glancing over at Hange first though, tensing a little. He’s irrationally afraid that she’s about to grab him. “Let me see your hand.” Levi gives it to him. He will admit to himself that being able to grip onto Erwin’s hand helps. “Now I want you to just keep looking at me,” Erwin says. “Keep your eyes open this time, and keep looking at me. I want you to start taking deep breaths.” He pauses as Levi tries to comply with the request. “Hange is going to start now.”

Levi tenses up in an instant and glances away, over at Hange. He flinches back. “Wait,” he says. “I need a bite.”

“I want to try without it,” Erwin says.

“Fuck that,” Levi says. It makes it easier – gives him an outlet to ease the tension, just like squeezing Erwin’s hand does, and it keeps him from hurting his jaw. Also from crying out during it.

“Just this once,” Erwin says. “I want you to be able to talk.”

Levi looks over at Hange, starting to cringe. He can feel his heartrate increasing, can feel the swell of panic under his skin. He doesn’t want to do this. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt _badly_. His chest starts going tight.

“Levi, look at me,” Erwin says. His voice is gentle but steady, and Levi looks back over. He gives an encouraging smile when Levi looks back. “That’s good. Just keep looking at me. I want you to start taking deep breaths. Nice and slow. We’re just going to breathe for a moment until you calm down.”

Levi takes long, deep breaths. He calms marginally. He can hear Hange’s voice in his head _count to five, hold for two, count to seven_ she’d been harping at it for the last two weeks, telling him to breathe deeply to help calm down. He’s been trying, but he’s not really been succeeding all that often.

“I want you to look at me, and focus on breathing,” Erwin says. His tone of voice strikes Levi as almost hypnotic, calm and soothing, though Levi still feels dizzy, can still feel his heartbeat too fast, almost painful against his ribs. It feels like too much, like his eyes are going to start burning any second, the wash of panic ready to overtake him. “That’s good, Levi,” Erwin says. “Hange is going to start. She’s going to go slow, and I want you to keep looking at me and focusing on breathing slow and deep. And if it gets overwhelming, we’re going to stop and take a break.”

“I want it over with,” Levi says. He doesn’t want this to drag out. He tries not to ask for breaks usually, because it feels like a monumental effort, summoning the motivation to let them start again. It’s more likely that the panic just overtakes him again, until he’s ready to beg them to let it be over.

“It will be over soon,” Erwin says, “but we’re going to take it a bit slower this time. I want you to tell me if things become overwhelming. But right now, keep taking deep breaths. Keep your eyes open, eyes on me.”

Levi feels Hange’s fingers touch his arm, and he flinches. A flash of panic goes over him and his breath stutters, body tensing.

“Breathe,” Erwin says. “Levi, focus on breathing. Breathe in, come on.”

Levi looks back at Erwin, takes a shaky breath in.

“Good. Long exhale.”

Levi lets the breath out. Sharp pain. Hange starting to unwrap the bandages. He flinches again, feels her grip tighten on his arm and can’t stop the noise coming up his throat.

“Another deep breath, Levi, inhale now, nice and slow. Everything is okay. You’re with me and Hange at the Survey Corps. Hange is taking care of your wound.”

Levi tries to focus on Erwin’s face, tries to inhale like he says, but it feels like he’s suffocating. More pain, sharp and insistent, and he can see the bright orange of glowing metal. He takes in several shallow breaths, tensing up, and it hurts, it _hurts._ He wants it to stop, he wants this to stop.

“Deep breath,” Erwin says, and suddenly Erwin’s hand is against the side of his face, Erwin’s eyes up closer. “Deeper, slower, Levi. You’re okay. Hange is changing the bandages. We’re in your room. You’re safe. Take a slower breath in.”

Levi tries. He manages one, but then there’s a sharp stab of pain and the exhale feels like it’s punched out of him, sharp and too fast, and he can’t control it.

“Hange,” Erwin says.

It hurts. He’s shaking.

“Slower breaths, Levi,” Erwin says. “Just take some slower breaths. You’re okay. We’re gonna wait until you calm down a bit. Keep looking at me and taking deep breaths. That’s good, that’s really good, Levi.”

Levi feels his chest slow, feels his heartrate uncomfortably fast start to fall after a few moments. His vision clears a bit, but he’s still terribly lightheaded. Erwin keeps talking in that slow, calm voice. Levi does as he says, inhales and exhales at his direction. The sharp pain is gone, but his arm still throbs.

“Hange is going to start again, Levi,” Erwin says, and Levi squeezes his eyes shut, tenses up with a stab of panic and dread. “Look at me,” Erwin says, gentle and coaxing this time. “Look at me, Levi. That’s good. You’re okay. Keep breathing.”

The sharp pain starts again and Levi’s eyes start burning.

“Deep breath, good,” Erwin says, as Levi sucks in an inhale. He lets it out slow, but stutters at the end when a searing streak of pain lights over his arm. He flinches, lets out a noise of pain. “Keep breathing,” Erwin says. “Everything’s okay. We’re in your room, it’s only Hange next to you. It’s okay.”

Levi flinches again, grits his teeth. “Hurts,” he says. It comes out watery, too close to cracking and he swallows, tenses some more. He doesn’t know why he said it.

“Levi, breathe, come on, deep breath,” Erwin says. Levi gasps an inhale, hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. “I know it hurts, Levi,” Erwin says. “Hange is taking care of the wound. It’s only Hange. It’ll be over soon, you’re doing great.”

It goes on. Erwin talks the whole time. He tells Hange to stop a couple times more, when Levi can’t get his breathing under control, when it becomes too much. As Hange is finishing unwrapping them, they take a break and Levi can’t stop hyperventilating.

“Slower,” Erwin says, gentle, calm. Levi can’t do it. He feels like he’s drowning, like there is no air.

“Can’t,” Levi says. He wants to stop. He doesn’t want Hange to start again. It’s painful and awful and he can’t think, can’t breathe. He’s dizzy and shaking.

“I know you can,” Erwin says. “It’s okay. We’re taking a break. We’re in your room, Hange is treating your wound. I’ll count for you, okay?” And Erwin counts. _Count to five, hold for two, count to seven_. Levi gasps and tries to follow. Eventually he’s able to calm his breathing enough to follow the count. When he does, Erwin tells him that Hange will start again. “There’s only a tiny bit left to unwrap,” Erwin says. “Just keep breathing through it. You’re doing so well.”

Levi is inclined to think he’s doing shit, can’t even fucking breathe correctly, but he just tenses and tries to keep his breathing slow and even as Hange finishes.

Once the bandages are done being unwrapped it’s not as bad. Levi’s able to stay calmer, doesn’t feel so much like he’s suffocating. It doesn’t hurt as much, as Hange cleans it and rewraps it. When it’s finally over, Levi is trembling and exhausted but he’s not hyperventilating like usual. It still takes him a while to really calm down. Erwin gives him tea and Levi sips it while his heartrate slows and his hands stop shaking.

It helps. It takes longer, but Levi doesn’t feel like he’s dying every time they change them anymore. Levi still couldn’t really call the process tolerable, but it wasn’t as excruciatingly overwhelming. He didn’t panic quite as badly, and the pain didn’t surpass his threshold to agonizing. He still dreads changing them, but he’s able to process it better.

Levi tries to get out of his forced buddy system three days later. He makes his case while with Erwin in his office.

“I’m doing better now,” Levi says. “Your shitty plan worked, it’s better, I’m not going to try to steal more shit.” He pauses when Erwin just looks flatly at him. “I’m not going to fucking kill myself either.”

“No,” Erwin says, and looks down.

Levi lets out a frustrated huff. “Erwin, I’m fine. I don’t need this. It’s unnecessary.”

“One week minimum,” Erwin says without looking up. “After that we will reassess.”

_Reassess, my ass_ , Levi thinks. There’s no way in hell he’s doing another week of this shit.

“Erwin, it’s driving me fucking insane, I can’t get a minute to myself,” Levi says. The best he gets is members of his squad sitting silently in his room while Levi utterly ignores them. It grates.

“That would be the point,” Erwin says.

“What, driving me fucking insane? Because you’re succeeding.”

“Not giving you a minute to yourself,” Erwin says.

“What, you want them to watch me shit too now?” Levi says.

“Levi,” Erwin says, looking up again. “This was the compromise. You don’t want to stay in medical. This is how you don’t stay in medical.”

Levi nearly growls. He is sick of being treated like a fucking child. “Erwin, I don’t need to be babysat,” he says. “This is making it worse. It’s driving me up a wall.”

“I am glad you are feeling better and I am sorry that you’re also feeling frustrated, but this is not up for negotiation,” Erwin says.

_Fucking Eyebrows_ , Levi thinks. He can’t even storm off on him. He’s stuck in that shitty fucking office until Hange or Mike come pick him up like some toddler. “I don’t regret it,” Levi says, just to throw Erwin’s words back at him. It’s ugly and harsh and Levi knows he’s just lashing out because he’s upset, but he says it anyway.

Erwin only looks up at him, that flat, resolute look still on his face. He says nothing back, and that only makes Levi more angry. He feels the urge to take the book out of Erwin’s hands and toss it across the room but huffs and turns around instead.

Erwin is not surprised when Levi asks a second time, the day after, to end the watch Erwin set up.

“Your little gremlin is getting especially aggravated,” Mike tells him, after Erwin denies his request the first time. Erwin sighs.

“He’s not especially happy about continuing to be looked after,” Erwin says.

“He threw a chair across the mess hall,” Mike says.

Erwin sighs.

“I think he traumatized Gunther,” Mike says. “Guy came out looking kind of pale.”

“I’ll talk to him about not verbally abusing his squad,” Erwin says.

And he does, right after telling Levi again that he will continue to be watched until the end of the week. Levi fumes at him.

“If you cannot behave respectfully and professionally towards your squad then you will have to stay with me throughout the day instead,” Erwin says.

“Oh good God,” Levi says, “are you fucking serious?”

“Yes,” Erwin says flatly.

“You want me to trail you like some dog?”

“Up to you,” Erwin says. “Your squad does not deserve to be yelled at and insulted, Levi.”

Levi apparently tones it down with his squadmates after that, but he does not stop acting on his irritation and frustration with Erwin. He continues to badger him about ending the “stupid fucking watch” every day right up until the end of the week. Erwin has half a mind to tell him that he is behaving exactly like the petulant child he keeps insisting he is not.

Erwin does believe that Levi is doing better, but that doesn’t mean changing the bandages is not still a taxing, painful, and panic-inducing experience. It’s still upsetting Levi enough that Erwin is still worried he might hurt himself – whether on purpose or with recklessness, like the laudanum.

While most of the times they change the bandages now are going okay, there are still a couple sessions which are harder. On the second day, they are in the middle of unwrapping the bandages, and as Levi began hyperventilating, Hange paused, and Erwin tried to get him to even out his breaths. And then Levi suddenly lets out a sob, and abruptly jerks his hands away from Erwin and Hange, bringing both up to cover his face. His breathing escalates until it sounds painful and terrified.

“Levi,” Erwin says. He touches Levi’s good arm, rubs his hand up and down. “Levi, can you look at me?”

“Stop,” he says. His hands tremble. “I can’t – I can’t breathe.”

“We’re taking a break,” Erwin says. “You’re okay. You’re breathing fine, you just need to slow down a bit, Levi.”

“No, I don’t…” Levi chokes back another sob. “It hurts. I can… it burns. It hurts so fucking much, Erwin, it –” Levi grabs at his arm and lets out a choking cry. “Stop, _stop_.”

“Levi, please look at me,” Erwin says. “No one’s burning you. You’re in your room, with me and Hange, and Hange is treating the wound. No one is hurting you. You’re safe.”

“I can feel it,” Levi says. “I can…” When he finally looks up, his eyes are foggy.

“Levi, look at me,” Erwin says. “You see me, right?” Levi nods. “Good. Look at your arm for me, Levi. No one’s burning you. You have a wound which is healing well, and Hange just needs to finish treating it for you. You’re in your room at the Survey Corps, and it’s just me and Hange with you. Everything is okay.”

Levi stares down at his arm, at the still-healing burn. He shudders, but his breathing slows a bit. He lifts his hand slowly, then touches the edges of the wound. “It hurts…” he says, but this time he sounds almost confused.

“It hurt very much when it happened,” Erwin says. “But that was two weeks ago. It’s been almost two weeks, and it’s healing well now. You’re okay now, that’s all over now. Take another deep breath, Levi.”

They have to take a bit longer than usual for Levi to calm down this time, but they’re able to keep going.

As the week goes on it seems to get easier, though Erwin thinks that probably has more to do with it getting less painful. By the time Levi’s watch week is up, it’s been two and a half weeks since the wound was cauterized. Erwin’s gotten glimpses of it when Hange changes them, and she’s commented that he’s healing remarkably quickly. Erwin doesn’t know how much Levi’s panic is heightening the pain, and he knows that Levi has been getting those phantom pains as well, but it has to be overall hurting less.

Erwin asks him, nearing the end of the week, how the pain is now.

“It sucks,” Levi says, from where he’s looking through Erwin’s bookshelf in his office.

“Is it better now though?” Erwin says. “It’s healing quite well.”

Levi shrugs. “Hange’s giving me less laudanum,” he says.

Which Erwin knows of course. She’s been weaning him off it very slowly, just a bit less every couple days. Erwin frowns. “It’s staying very painful then?” Maybe she’s doing it too quickly.

Levi shrugs again. “It’s better than it was at first.” He pauses. “The laudanum makes my head…” He waves his hand in a vague gesture. “Hazy,” he says. “I don’t remember as much with it. Now I remember more.”

Remember the cauterizations, Erwin is assuming. There’s been a few times now where Levi has told him that he can feel burning, or that his arm burns, during the times they change the bandages. Erwin had assumed that he was just saying it now when he didn’t before because he’d had a bite before – he hadn’t been saying anything. It hadn’t occurred to him that Levi might actually be having the phantom, hallucinatory pains more often now.

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Erwin says.

That night, Erwin wakes to the sounds of restless shifting and whimpering. He’s immediately awake.

Erwin has been sleeping in Levi’s room the past week. He’s not a heavy sleeper, and it’s gotten even worse sleeping in Levi’s room, afraid that Levi is going to sneak out. But Levi’s done nothing but read and sip tea and lie in bed or sit on his chair. Levi had told Erwin before that he was having nightmares, but Erwin hasn’t witnessed any. He’s gotten the impression that Levi is either very quiet even when having nightmares, not one to cry out or flail in his sleep, or that he wakes very quickly upon having them.

Erwin sits up though and through the soft light of the moon filtering through the window, sees Levi moving around in his sleep, soft noises of distress coming out of his mouth. Erwin starts to get up.

“Levi,” he says. He takes a step forward, is going to shake Levi’s shoulder, but Levi suddenly sits bolt upright with a choked gasp so abruptly that Erwin jumps.

Levi looks around the room, grabbing at the blankets over him, eyes glazed. There’s tearstains on his face and he hyperventilates, pushing himself back on the bed.

“Levi, it’s alright, it was only a nightmare,” Erwin says. He takes a cautious step forward. “You’re okay. You’re in your room, at the Survey Corps.”

Levi grabs at his arm and then tips his head back, shutting his eyes as his whole body seems to tense.

“Levi, it’s okay,” Erwin says. “It was a nightmare. It’s alright now.”

Levi’s still shaking, still breathing so fast. And then he lets out a sob. “I couldn’t move," he says suddenly, voice shaking and wet. "It hurt. Over and over again. It just kept _going_. I couldn’t wake up.”

“It’s over now,” Erwin says. “It’s okay.”

Levi’s not looking at him though, is staring somewhere in front of him. “Over and over,” he says, and he sounds not like himself, almost mumbling. “The knife… I’ve never been in that much pain. Just _, over_ and _over_ again.”

Erwin sits on Levi’s bed and touches his shoulder. “Levi, look at me.”

Levi lifts his head slowly. He looks so young, with his eyes wide and glazed and a tear running down one side, his gaze lost and haunted at the same time.

“Breathe,” Erwin says. “It’s done. It in all likelihood will never happen again. You survived. It’s over now. You’re in your room at –”

“At the Survey Corps,” Levi says.

“Yes,” Erwin says, and he gives a gentle smile. “That’s good.”

Levi lets out a shaky breath. He touches his arm, over the bandages. “It hurts,” he says, almost mumbled.

“It won’t for much longer,” Erwin says. “It’s alright. You’re doing so well.”

Levi lets out a huff. “I’m not doing well, Erwin,” Levi says, his tone flat. “You call doing well needing a fucking suicide watch?”

“You are in a terrible situation,” Erwin says, “and you are getting through it, so yes, you are still doing well.”

Levi sighs. “Barely,” he says.

“And technically the suicide watch ends tomorrow,” Erwin says.

Levi huffs. “I thought you were ‘reassessing,’” he says.

“We'll talk about it tomorrow. You seem to be doing better now,” Erwin says.

Levi grunts.

“How about I get some tea?” Erwin says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to finish up the story in this chapter but that didn't happen, so there will be (at least?) one more chapter.
> 
> As always, I love and appreciate all the comments and kudos! Thanks for reading, and thanks for the feedback.


	6. Paralyzed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi gets his first injury post-cauterization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TW I would like to reiterate that you should read the tags for warnings.

Levi gets better slowly. Erwin’s not sure if it’s solely that it stops being so painful, or if Levi’s actually adjusting to it, but eventually Levi starts telling Hange when to stop and start on his own, starts breathing better, starts getting through it without having a panic attack every time. It still clearly makes him very anxious, right up until the end when it’s finally healed and he no longer has to wear bandages around it, but it gets much better.

It’s a long recovery period though. Levi is cleared for light physical exercise two weeks after getting injured, but he doesn’t actually start exercising until almost a month afterwards. Erwin tried coaxing Levi into doing some workouts with his squad, with Erwin, by himself – something – but Levi had refused. It was one of the things that had Erwin worrying, because Levi is not a lazy man, and he usually enjoys exercise. Erwin hadn’t been willing to push though, or to order him to start again.

So Levi starts exercising again when it’s been a month and they no longer have to change the bandages every day. It takes him a while to work back up to his previous fitness level, and even longer to become entirely reacquainted with ODM.

It wouldn’t take so long if he hadn’t also lost so much weight. He hadn’t eaten well during the month after he was injured, and Erwin finds himself nagging at a very unamused Levi about eating enough to gain the weight back. It’s not like he had a lot of body fat to lose – what he’s lost is muscle mass.

Erwin hadn’t been so naïve as to not realize there were going to be lasting scars from what Levi went through, that it was going to take time for him to feel normal again, but Erwin’s still surprised and concerned at the amount of time it takes for Levi to start sounding like himself again.

He seems to slowly get a little better over the remaining weeks that they’re still changing the bandages. When they stop changing them, his temper improves. But Erwin honestly expected a bigger change. He thought it would be more of a relief than it seems Levi finds it, though maybe that was just because he’d already been getting better with it, as changing them became much less painful. But instead of the relief and gradual improvement that Erwin was expecting, the anger and panic drops away to leave Levi… sullen.

He looks sullen most of the time, despondent. Levi’s default expression has always been apathetic, blank, but there’s a turn to it now, it’s gone dark around the edges. He’s anxious too. Not the sharp panic or anxiety-laced dread of before, but he’s jumpy and on edge. He looks more tired than usual as well – as he stops taking laudanum, he stops getting the extra rest it provided. Erwin knows without asking that he’s not sleeping much, and Levi confirms that he’s still getting nightmares about it.

Levi’s always had a propensity for cleaning and an almost compulsive need for cleanliness, but it starts getting… worrying. Erwin realizes very quickly that what he thought of as a benign albeit occasionally annoying quirk of Levi’s is becoming, if it was not already, a real issue.

Levi cleans a lot. He cleans a lot at night especially, when he can’t sleep. Erwin wakes up in the morning to find the hallways have all been swept and mopped, that the mess hall has been cleaned, the gear shed organized, the dishes in the kitchens all re-washed and put away. He finds Levi cleaning his own room quite often, and then Levi cleans Erwin’s office, and, shockingly, Hange’s office as well. After a few run-ins where Erwin tries to gather Levi’s attention away from cleaning while he is in the middle of it, Erwin comes to the conclusion that it is in part compulsive, that Levi seems unable to stop once he’s started. He sometimes pauses in the middle of doing other things to clean something as well, if it’s caught his attention.

“He’s always been a bit obsessive about it,” Hange says, when Erwin brings it up to her. She frowns at him. “It has been worse though, hasn’t it?”

Erwin catches him in his room while he’s changing once and stops mid-sentence when he sees bandages wrapped around Levi’s arm. His ODM gear straps don’t cross it, so it shouldn’t be rubbing on anything.

“You’re wearing bandages,” Erwin says.

“Yeah,” Levi says, pulling on his shirt and starting to work on the buttons.

“Is there a problem with its healing?” Erwin says. He has the sinking thought that Levi’s somehow reinjured himself, that the healing skin reopened somehow, and Levi’s been hiding the injury.

“No,” Levi says though. He doesn’t pause in his buttoning and there’s not anything in his body language to indicate that he’s lying.

“Why the bandages then?” Erwin says.

“It’s sensitive,” Levi says. “Hurts when I touch it.”

Erwin pauses. “Hurts as in…” He flounders for a way to phrase it.

“No,” Levi says. “Not the –” he waves his arm, “the burning. It’s just uncomfortable. My clothes rub on it. Happened with the last one too.”

“Is that – does it make you anxious too?” Erwin says. “Changing those ones.” They’re not the same type of bandages that they used before, and he won’t need to change them as often, though he’ll have to do it every time he takes a shower, and Erwin knows he bathes at least once a day, sometimes more.

“Not as much,” Levi says.

“Not as much?”

Levi sighs. “Put it this way,” he says, “I’d rather keep redoing the bandages than go without them.”

Erwin imagines it can’t be making him too anxious then – he thinks at the start of this, Levi would have gladly endured the discomfort of clothing rubbing on sensitive skin to changing them. Still, perhaps this was contributing to his poor mood.

“Hange or I could stay with you while you do it,” Erwin says.

Levi huffs. He pulls on his uniform jacket. “It’s fine,” he says.

“If it would help for –”

“It’s fine, Erwin,” Levi says.

It is the end of the conversation.

Erwin knew, of course, that the next time Levi got injured, it was going to be difficult. But he hadn’t put overmuch thought into it because Levi did not actually get injured that often. There was no expedition planned for a couple of months, and while Levi had gotten hurt inside the walls before, it was even more rare. So Erwin was not expecting it when a soldier comes running up to him to tell him that Captain Levi is… hiding in a tree.

“What are you doing up there?” Erwin says, yelling so as to be heard and shielding his eyes, craning his neck to look all the way up at Levi, where he is perched literally as high as possible.

“Fuck off,” Levi yells back.

He’s in the tallest tree in the area, high enough up that Erwin’s surprised the branches he’s crouched amid are still holding his weight. When the wind blows, Levi and the uppermost branches he’s perched on sway.

Erwin uses his gear to propel himself upwards, but he can’t get as high as Levi. He stands on a branch of a nearby tree a few meters below him instead, and even there the branch he stands on creaks a bit.

“I will fling these blades at your shitty face, Eyebrows,” Levi says.

Despite this, Levi does not have his blades out. His cloak shrouds him. “You look like a bird,” Erwin says, and can’t help smiling. “In a nest at the top of the tree.”

“Oh fuck off, Erwin,” Levi says.

“Why are you up here?” Erwin says, clinging to his own tree with one hand and holding his gear in the other, in case his branch breaks and he falls.

“Piss off,” Levi says.

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“One of the soldiers said you were injured.”

“Then why’d you ask me?”

“Well I was hoping you’d tell me what your injury is,” Erwin says. “He said he thought you hurt your hand.”

“Well he’s an idiot.”

“Did you cut it?” Erwin says, because if Levi’s really hiding in a tree, Erwin assumes it was a cut of some kind.

“No.”

“Does it need stitches?”

“I just said I don’t have a cut.”

“You said you weren’t injured either.”

“Will you fuck off already?” Levi says. “Shoo. You’re a pest.”

“You know, it will be very hard for Hange to treat you up here, Levi,” Erwin says.

“Good thing she doesn’t need to treat me.”

“Not that she wouldn’t try, of course,” Erwin says. “I’m sure she’d love to try to patch you up from up here.”

“She’d fall before she made it within three meters of me,” Levi says.

“Is that a bet?”

“Go away, Erwin.”

“Will you come down?” Erwin says.

“You’re disturbing me,” Levi says.

“Disturbing what exactly, your convalescence?”

Levi gives him a dirty look. He does look rather peaceful up there, if absurdly precarious, perched in the top of the tree.

Erwin’s voice softens. “Levi, come down with me,” he says. “Whatever it is, we’ll take care of it.”

Levi looks away from him, expression hard.

“Levi.”

Levi continues to ignore him.

“You can’t stay up there forever.”

“Watch me.”

Erwin lets out a long breath.

An hour later, and Levi is still in the tree.

Levi either ignores him or retorts with snippy, flippant remarks as Erwin tries to get him down from the tree. Eventually Hange joins him, having apparently found them missing and come investigating. She stands with her arms wrapped around the trunk of her own tree, near Erwin. She calls out to him as well, first with her normal exuberance and then as that yields no results she switches to a more gentle, coaxing tone. Neither appear to affect him at all.

She eventually sighs next to him. “Alright, Erwin, we have no choice,” she says.

“What?” Erwin says.

She looks at him seriously. “We have to cut the tree down.”

Erwin sighs. “Hange.”

“Do you think our blades will cut through it?” she says. “Here, you stay with him while I get a hatchet.”

“We can’t cut down an eighty-meter tree with a hatchet,” Erwin says.

“We don’t have to cut down eighty meters worth of it, just the top four or so,” Hange says.

“He’ll just go to a different tree,” Erwin says.

“Yes, but that one’s the tallest,” Hange says.

“We can’t cut down a tree while he’s in it” Erwin says. “He’s injured, what if he falls?”

“Hm, I’ll cut the tree and you catch him,” Hange says, making a fist in triumph.

“Hange.”

“Well it’s that or one of us swoops in and grabs him,” Hange says. “He’s not coming down, Erwin.”

“He has to come down eventually.”

Hange levels a look at him. “Are you betting against Levi’s stubbornness, Erwin?”

Erwin rubs a hand over his face. “Levi, will you please agree to come down before Hange tries to blow up your tree?”

“Explosives!” Hange says, nearly falling as she throws out her arms. “Genius, Erwin!”

“You fuck up this tree and I’ll fuck you up, Shitty Glasses,” Levi says.

“Levi, you’ve been up there for two hours, please, just come down,” Erwin says.

“How long do you think he could actually stay up there?” Hange says. “I’m guessing forty-eight hours.”

“ _Forty-eight hours_?” Erwin says.

“There’s no way Shorty can go more than forty-eight hours without a bath,” Hange says.

“How could he possibly stay up there for two days?” Erwin says.

“People can go three days without water,” Hange says, “and I know Levi can go that long without sleep. He looks pretty comfortable up there anyway.”

Erwin closes his eyes for a moment.

Hange puts her hand under her chin. “Hm, but what if it rained?” she says. “Think Levi would count that as a bath?”

“Oh good Lord,” Erwin says, rubbing his hand over his face again.

“Hey, Shitty Glasses, why don’t you make yourself useful and go get me some food,” Levi says.

“No can do, Levi,” Hange says.

“You can throw it to me,” Levi says.

“Levi, please, will you just come down?” Erwin says. “This is exhausting.

“Not my problem.”

“I could try singing,” Hange says. “Maybe we could annoy him into coming down.”

Erwin thinks he might just scream if Hange starts singing.

Erwin sits on a branch defeatedly while he watches Hange throw pinecones at Levi.

He has tried the joking, lighthearted approach. He has tried the sincere, understanding approach. He has tried the severe, hardline commander approach. He has tried, inevitably, the frustrated, imploring, and finally pleading, approach.

So he sits and watches as Hange attempts the pinecone approach.

“Fuck _off_ Four Eyes,” Levi says.

Erwin lets out a long breath.

“Let’s make a deal,” Erwin says, calling out to Levi again. “What will it take to get you down from there, Levi?”

“You leaving me the fuck alone.”

“Will you let Hange look at you?”

“No.”

“I promise no medical, just Hange.”

“No.”

“You can use my private bath. I’ll get you tea, whiskey, whatever you’d like. We can go slowly. No one will touch you unless you say it’s alright.”

Levi ignores him.

“Is it painful?” Erwin says. “If I promise we’ll get you laudanum, will you come down?”

Hange shoots him a glance. Erwin suppresses a grimace. He doesn’t really want to be bribing Levi with drugs but he’s at a loss. It’s starting to look like Levi really does intend to hide out in the tree for many more hours if not days.

Levi’s eyes narrow at him. “No,” he says.

“Will you tell us how you’ve hurt yourself?” Erwin says. “Maybe you can patch it up yourself, and Hange can just take a look or give you some help, hm? That would be easier for you, right?”

Levi makes no response.

“I’ll double your tea rations,” Erwin says.

Levi raises an eyebrow at that.

“For a month,” Erwin says. He waits, and Levi just keeps looking at him. “And I’ll order a batch of that black tea blend you liked so much in Mitras,” Erwin says.

Levi almost smiles at him. “Tempting,” he says. “If only I had known if I hid from you long enough you’d start bribing me.”

“Will you come down now?”

“No.”

Erwin sighs again and looks back over at Hange, who suddenly has her eyes narrowed, a calculating look on her face.

“He’s waiting for the cut to seal,” Hange says.

Erwin frowns at her. “What?” he says.

“He’s gotten himself cut and he’s waiting until it’s been too long, until stitches will be useless so he won’t have to get them,” she says. “How long has it been? He only needs to wait about eight hours and then it can’t be stitched anymore, unless it’s a very bad wound.”

“How are you sure?” Erwin says. “I don’t even know that it’s a cut – it could be a different injury.”

“No,” she says. “He’s too calm. He’s been joking back at us. He knows if he just waits it out, he won’t need treatment – at least, not stitches. Not a cauterization either, if he’s worried about that.” She sighs. “He’s going to get it infected at this rate – I’m sure he hasn’t got anything to sterilize it with, so that means he has an open wound that hasn’t been closed or disinfected in any way.”

“Surely he knows the risk of infection,” Erwin says.

“I don’t think he really cares at the moment,” she says, “if he’s even thought about it at all beyond his current mission to stay away long enough for the wound to begin healing.”

Erwin mulls this over. The thought of trying to treat Levi for an infection makes his stomach turn. Not even touching the fact that it is dangerous, that infection can result in amputation or death, Erwin can’t imagine how Levi would react to needing the wound cleaned, drained, perhaps requiring surgery. He takes a long breath.

“Levi,” he says, louder again so Levi can hear him, in as sobering a tone as he can, “we are getting very concerned about infection.” Erwin pauses, lets that sink in. Levi makes no movement, expression blank as always. “If you have an open wound and have not yet disinfected and closed it up, you are already at risk. You increase your chances of infecting it with every minute we stay out here. You need to have it cleaned.”

Erwin waits. He sees just the faintest flicker, the faintest tightening of Levi’s expression. And Erwin takes a deep breath, schools his expression to a firm, hard look, even as guilt curls in his stomach. “Even if you managed to rinse it with some water, you don’t have any soap or alcohol or disinfectant out here and just water is not enough. Out in the forest after training is not a hygienic environment, Levi.”

Erwin nearly winces to himself. The last thing Erwin wants to do is exploit Levi’s anxiety surrounding cleanliness. But he has exhausted all other methods and if what Hange says is true, then they really do need to get him down and seen to as quickly as possible.

“You are going to let the wound become infected,” Erwin says. “If you haven’t already. I know you know the treatment for infection, Levi. I don’t want you to have to go through that.” Not to mention the danger. But Erwin remembers what Levi had said about dying, and while he’s been doing better, there is a nagging fear in Erwin’s gut, that the danger of dying from infection will be less of a deterrent than the prospect of having it treated.

Levi flinches. Erwin takes another long breath.

“He’s not exaggerating,” Hange says, her voice calm, gentle. “We really need you to let us take a look, Levi.”

Levi is silent for a long moment and Erwin tenses, lets himself hope that Levi might finally acquiesce.

“I won’t do stitches,” Levi says. “I’ll clean it myself. You can look at it.”

Erwin nearly groans. Hange hesitates a moment. “I don’t think I can promise that, Levi,” she says. “If it needs stitches… you can’t just ignore that, Levi. The wound needs to be closed up.”

“No,” Levi says.

“You’ve done fine for stitches before,” Erwin says carefully. “I know having it treated at all makes you anxious, but the stitches themselves haven’t seemed very bad.”

The two times Erwin has seen him get stitches he’s actually relaxed more the longer Hange worked. He’d only gotten very nervous at the beginning and the end, when she had to start and when the wound had to be sterilized.

But then Levi said he wanted to clean the wound himself, so maybe it was starting that treatment that was scaring him.

“You could still clean it yourself,” Erwin says, “and Hange could just help you do so, if you need it. We can take breaks, give you time to relax if it becomes too much.”

Levi’s eyes narrow. He’s silent for a long moment and Erwin tenses, waiting.

“I want laudanum,” he says.

Erwin looks to Hange. She has her arms crossed and does not look at all pleased with the idea. “Unless you’ve got shrapnel or something imbedded in you, Shorty, I really don’t think this is going to surpass your pain threshold.”

“Laudanum or I’m not coming down,” Levi says.

“Hange,” Erwin says softly.

“Ever heard the saying that we don’t negotiate with terrorists, Erwin?” she says. She looks up at him, mouth frowning. “He’s going to do this every time, you know,” she says.

“Would it really be so terrible to give him some laudanum on the rare occasions that he injures himself?” Erwin says.

Hange sighs. “He’s already overdosed on it once, Erwin. He’s not a patient I’d want to keep giving it to.” But she cups her hands together then, shouting back to Levi. “Fine,” she says, “a small amount.”

Levi stares at them for another moment, tense, eyes darting between the two of them. And then in one fluid motion, he stands and drops from the tree. He catches himself with a wire and lands lightly on his feet. He looks up at them from the ground, a dark look. Erwin and Hange are quick to join him on the ground, and Erwin lets his body relax in relief as he follows Levi back to Hange’s office, finally.

Hange quickly gathers water, soap, cloth, and her medkit. She pulls out a vial of laudanum. Erwin’s a little surprised that she has some right in her office. That definitely wasn’t cleared by medical, though Erwin trusts her with it. She pours a few drops onto a spoon and then hands it to Levi.

Levi looks down at it, and then back up at Hange.

“I said a small amount,” she says. “You’re walking around just fine so I’m sure you don’t need much.”

Levi wrinkles his nose but takes the spoon from her, swallowing the liquid, followed by some water. He paces the room while Hange opens the med kit.

“Can I see?” she says.

“No,” Levi says.

“I won’t touch yet,” she says, “can I just see, so I know what we’re dealing with here, and can get whatever we’ll need?”

Levi pauses. He’s kept his left hand out of sight under his cloak the entire time. He slowly approaches Hange’s desk. He doesn’t sit down, and his eyes flick from Hange to Erwin. His eyes set on Hange again.

“Don’t touch,” he says.

“I won’t,” she says. She folds her hands in front of her, in close, and Levi hesitates again before slowly reaching his left hand forward, into view.

“Oh God, Levi,” Hange says. Erwin cringes. Two of Levi’s fingers are swollen and going red and bluish-black in places, like he crushed them against something. Blood is welled up under his nails. His jacket is cut but it looks like he’s tied a handkerchief around his hand and wrist. Erwin sees the beginnings of a cut across his palm, but it’s obscured under the cloth.

“They’re not broken,” Levi says.

“You still need them splinted if you’ve managed to sprain them,” Hange says, peering a little closer. Levi draws back a bit in response until Hange leans back in her chair again. “Can I see the rest?”

Carefully, and after another moment of hesitation, Levi pulls back his uniform jacket and shirt, and then unties the handkerchief. The cut that runs across the side of his palm up a few inches of his wrist isn’t too bad, but it looks deep enough to require stiches in some places. He’d gotten lucky with the placement. A couple inches over and it would have hit the underside of his wrist instead of the side of it, and cut across the veins visible there, creating a much more serious wound.

Hange stares at the wound and frowns, her mouth drawing tight. She’s silent for a moment, but when she looks up her face is neutral. “Alright, not too bad,” Hange says. “You’ll need a few stitches on your wrist, I think. We’ll try tape on your palm. It doesn’t look too deep there.” 

But Erwin can see exactly why she hesitated at first. The skin around the cut is already inflamed. They need to get the wound washed, and they’ll need to keep a close eye on it over the next couple days. Levi’s eyes flick over Hange for a moment, and then he draws his arm back in and re-covers it with the handkerchief.

“Can you start washing it, Levi?” Hange says.

Levi hesitates. Hange pushes over the large bowl of water, cloth, and soap to him. Levi takes the soap in his hand slowly. He removes the handkerchief again and dips his hand into the water.

His expression tightens a little as he begins to wash the cut, the only sign of pain he gives. The laudanum couldn’t have started working yet. Erwin’s not really sure how much the small amount Hange gave him is going to help anyway. Not that it matters particularly. Erwin’s pretty sure Levi’s goal in using it is solely as a means of anxiety relief, not to block pain.

Hange watches as he washes it. Levi cleans carefully and methodically. And then he starts drawing it out.

Erwin watches Levi’s movements slow even as his shoulders start tensing. He glances from Levi to Hange, who is starting to frown.

“That looks good, Levi,” Hange says.

Levi grunts, slows down some more, but doesn’t stop.

“You can stop, Levi,” Hange says. “It’s clean.”

Levi’s shoulders tense some more. His hands don’t leave the bowl of water. Erwin’s frown deepens. He glances up at Hange.

“Levi,” she says gently. “You need to stop now. It’s clean. You’re just going to irritate the wound if you keep going.”

Levi lets out a long breath and stops. His hands hang in the bowl for a moment, and then he takes the clean cloth Hange gives him, drying them off. He keeps the cloth pressed to his hand.

“We need to disinfect it now,” Hange says.

Erwin had thought that Levi’s continued hand washing was due to his recent uptick in anxiety around cleaning, but as Levi’s shoulder tense and his arms go rigid, he thinks Levi knew the disinfectant was coming and was trying to procrastinate.

He turns on his heel, and then starts pacing again.

It’s silent for a moment. “Levi–” Hange says gently.

“Not yet,” he says.

He paces. “We can wait a few minutes,” Hange says.

He’s waiting for the laudanum to kick in, Erwin thinks. Or maybe he’s just trying to delay it.

It is an agonizing ten minutes that they wait. Silence, and Levi pacing.

“Levi, the laudanum should have started working by now,” she says, “can you sit down?”

Levi shakes his head, keeps pacing.

“You can do it yourself, if you want,” Hange says. “You can take as long as you need.”

He shakes his head again. He wipes his right hand against his pants, then crosses his arms, then touches at his wrist, movements jerky and anxious.

“Levi, lets sit down,” Erwin says. “We can take everything slowly. You can just breathe for a minute.”

He shakes his head. Erwin knows better than to make any move towards him now. He stays where he stands by Hange’s desk instead, before pulling over a chair and sitting down.

“Come on, Levi,” Erwin says, “it’s just the alcohol. Only that. It will only hurt for a moment and then it will be over.”

Levi moves slowly over towards them, almost edging his way. He sits tentatively down, chair still a ways away from Hange’s desk. Hange takes a small bottle of alcohol and a pad of gauze and slides them over to Levi.

Levi stares at them for a moment, and then his jaw clenches and he reaches for the items. His hands shake. He carefully opens the bottle and wets the gauze. He holds it in his right hand, fingers tight on the edge of it. He takes a shuddering breath and then dabs at the palm of his hand, just the top of the wound.

His body goes rigid and Erwin sees the blood drain from his face. His eyes glass over and go wide at the same moment as he drops the gauze to grip at his arm, pushing backwards in the chair.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, shit, no.”

The chair scrapes loudly and nearly topples over as he gets up. Erwin moves too, stands, though only to block the door, afraid that Levi’s about to bolt. Levi moves abruptly away from him, backing into the room, pacing around as he shakes his head and hyperventilates.

“Just breathe,” Erwin says. “You’re alright, just breathe.”

“No,” Levi says, panicked and harsh and Erwin had almost forgotten how painful it was to see him like this, terrified and desperate and in pain. “No, I won’t.”

Erwin takes one very careful step forward, his hands up. “Levi, just breathe a little slower. You’re okay. We’re at the Survey Corps headquarters. We’re in Hange’s –”

“We’re in Hange’s office and I’m not letting you fucking burn me again,” Levi says, loud. Erwin tenses, and he sees Hange also go rigid. Levi freezes though, blinking. “Fuck,” he says, soft, like he’s just realized what he’d said. He tears his good hand through his hair. “Shit.”

“We aren’t going to burn you,” Erwin says slowly. “You’re okay. You just have a small wound. There’s no reason to do anything but clean and stitch it. You’re alright, just breathe.”

Levi shakes his head. “No,” he says, “no, I can’t. Erwin, I – _fuck_ …”

“You just need to breathe, let yourself calm down a bit,” Erwin says. “You’re okay now. You just had a bit of a flashback. You’re alright now.”

“No,” Levi says, shaking his head. “No, I can’t – I can’t,” he says.

“Levi, breathe, please,” Erwin says, as gently as he can. “Just focus on breathing for a minute. You’re working yourself up. I promise if you just try to breathe a little slower for a minute, it’ll get better.”

Levi keeps shaking his head, walking back and forth, alternatively gripping his arm and running his hand through his hair. He suddenly lets out a deranged laugh. “Why don’t you just chop the whole thing off?” Levi says. “It’ll cut off any infection. I’d probably pass out then, right?”

“Levi,” Erwin says softly, with a swell of sadness in his chest. “It’s only a small wound, it won’t take long at all. You’re okay. You’ll be okay.”

“I told you this would happen,” Levi says. “I told you I wouldn’t be able to deal, I told you I’d lose my _fucking_ mind the next time I got hurt.”

“You’re not losing your mind,” Erwin says. “You’re having a panic attack. It’ll pass. We’ll get this done and you’ll be fine.

“No,” Levi says. “No.”

“Breathe. We don’t need to do anything yet,” Erwin says. “We’re taking a break.”

Levi shakes his head, tears his hand through his hair again. His eyes are gone and his expression wild. His hand moves abruptly to his side, like he’s trying to grab at his gear, but he’d taken it off outside. His head jerks up and over at them at the same time as he backs up farther into the room.

He pales farther, glancing between Hange and Erwin, to the door behind Erwin, then around the room, then back to both of them. His teeth are clenched, and he goes from pale to almost gray, the hyperventilating getting even worse all of a sudden, as his eyes dart. He looks like he’s about to pass out. Erwin feels his own body suddenly tense, an intuitive adrenaline at the sudden change in Levi’s body language.

“Levi –” Erwin starts.

“You’re not making me do this again, you’re not holding me down.” Levi’s whole body shakes. “If you call those medics in, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill someone, Erwin,” Levi says.

“Levi,” Erwin says, slowly, carefully and with his hands up, voice low, despite the prickling alarm across his skin, “there are no medics, we’re not going to hold you down. There isn’t anyone here but me and Hange. There’s no one outside the door. There’s no reason to hold you down.”

“You’re not doing this to me again, I won’t go through this again,” Levi says. “I’d rather fucking die.”

“Okay,” he says. His voice goes soft, placating, almost breathy. “Okay, I’m not doing it again. We’re not doing anything. You have a small wound on your wrist, remember? It’s just a small wound, and we’re not doing anything right now.”

Levi’s eyes are gone, blown wide with horror and desperation. They dart for another moment before he grabs up a metal pole that was leaning against a cabinet next to him. He holds it in front of him like a weapon, standing partially sideways to shield his injured hand.

“We’re in Hange’s office,” Erwin repeats, keeping his distance, his hands still up.

He remembers the first time he’d confronted Levi, when Levi had been backed up against a tree with his blades out, threatening anyone who tried to get near him to treat his wounded side. Erwin remembers walking directly forward anyway, intrinsically aware that Levi was not about to actually hurt him with the blades, despite his violent threats.

Erwin is pretty certain that if he tried to walk towards Levi now, he’d have a bashed-in head the second he was in range.

“You’re alright,” Erwin says, trying for soothing and gentle. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re not going to burn you.”

“I’ll do it this time,” Levi says, like he hasn’t heard Erwin at all. “I’ll kill myself before I let you brand me again, before you do that to me again.”

Erwin feels his face pale. His eyes go to the pole in Levi’s hands, and then around the room, glancing for weapons Levi could use against himself. He opens his mouth to reiterate that they are _not_ going to burn him, not going to hurt him or even to touch him, but Hange speaks first.

“Levi,” Hange says, “I’m going to give you more laudanum. Can I give you more laudanum?”

Erwin turns to her with surprise. She has the bottle out, a spoon already filled. He glances back to Levi, who also looks somewhat surprised, though it’s mixed with confusion and the still very present fear and anger, and it’s still such a lost look.

“I thought you said this was a bad idea,” Erwin says, voice quiet, to Hange.

“It’s a terrible idea,” she says, “but if the alternative is him having a breakdown than I’d rather this.”

Levi looks from Hange to Erwin, fingers still tight over the pole, held out threateningly.

“Levi, can I please give you the laudanum?” Hange says.

“Stay the fuck away,” Levi says.

“I’m staying right here,” she says, still holding out the spoon. “Can you come take this?”

Levi’s eyes flick around like he doesn’t quite understand the question. They narrow at Erwin and Erwin takes a couple steps back towards the door, to give Levi the opportunity to approach Hange’s desk without getting too close to him.

“You’re trying to incapacitate me,” Levi says, eyes narrowed at Hange.

“I’m trying to give you something to help you calm down,” she says, “and to take the pain. I know it hurts and you’re scared, and this will help.”

He still looks indecisive, eyes flicking around, but he’s stopped screaming, stopped looking like he’s about to throw himself out the window to get away.

“Levi, you have a little cut on your wrist, remember? And you were in the tree? And I said I’d give you some laudanum if you’d come down and clean it out? I threw pine cones at you?” she says.

His eyes flicker. “Yes, I – of course I fucking remember.” The pole he holds dips a few inches, his arm wavering.

“Good,” she says. “And you washed out the wound, you cleaned it yourself, but when you tried to use the alcohol, it scared you. I know that hurt, that you got overwhelmed. I want to give you laudanum so your wrist doesn’t hurt so much.”

Levi nods slowly. His eyes go between Erwin and Hange.

“Can I give you the laudanum, Levi?” Hange says, holding out the spoon.

He stands still for another moment. “I won’t sit down,” he says.

“You don’t have to,” she says. “You can do whatever you want. I’m going to give you this to help with the pain, to help you calm down, because I know it hurts. You can stay standing. You can sit down over there if you want, and we’ll stay over here. We won’t touch you.”

He stares at her another moment, and then, carefully and quickly, comes forward and grabs the spoon from her. He takes the laudanum, and retreats back again.

He’s still breathing too fast, and he keeps pacing, moving around, still gripping the pole in one hand, but it’s clear he’s starting to settle now. The laudanum won’t have started working yet, but over the next few minutes he begins to calm down anyway, Hange clearly having managed to break him out of the worst of it. He still shakes though, still breathes too fast. He doesn’t say anything, looks up at them worriedly, but Erwin leans back against the door, staying there, and Hange sits at her desk. After a minute she turns towards Erwin and starts an abrupt conversation about titans. Erwin blinks at first, but then answers. They have a mundane conversation, and Hange keeps her voice unusually even and quiet. They mostly ignore Levi. This seems to help. He calms down as their attention is taken away from him.

Eventually, Levi’s movements and his breathing slows, and then he sits down on a bench across the room. He places the pole down. In another couple minutes he tips his head back and then shuts his eyes. His breathing goes steady.

“Levi?” Hange says.

Levi looks up. His eyes are glassy, dazed, but he’s not pale anymore. The medication is working. He’s clearly had more than usual, maybe around the same that he’d had right after his cauterization, maybe even a bit more. It’s clearly less than he’d had when he’d stolen it though. His expression morphs to something wary.

“How are you feeling?” Hange says.

Levi looks from Hange to Erwin. “Tired,” he says.

“We’ll take you back to your room to sleep in a bit,” she says. “Do you think we can finish looking at your wound now?”

Levi cringes. He shakes his head.

“We really need to finish looking at it,” she says. “You’re feeling okay now, right? I promise it’s not going to hurt much at all. I know it hurt earlier, and that scared you. But you’ve taken a good dose of laudanum. It won’t feel like that again.”

He looks at her. “Hange,” he says. It sounds disconcertingly like a plea, his expression much too open, the desperation and fear and dread showing through.

Hange’s smile cracks. “I know, Shorty,” she says, “but we have to take care of this.”

“Will you come over here, Levi?” Erwin says.

Levi stands slowly. He wobbles a little bit as he walks over, then sits down in the chair across from Hange at her desk. He stares at the bottle of alcohol like he’s keeping an eye on it, unable to look away.

Hange wets a piece of gauze. “It’s a disinfectant,” she says. “To clean your wrist. You didn't quite finish when you tried yourself. It’ll only sting a bit, I promise. It won’t feel like before.”

Levi stares at the bottle, his eyes wide but still. His eyes follow it, like he’s watching something about to jump out at him. “I’m gonna freak out,” he says. He sounds unnervingly unlike himself, voice oddly even and yet almost slurring. It makes him sound young, somehow.

“You’re on way too much laudanum to freak out, Shorty, promise,” Hange says.

Levi stares intently at the bottle for another moment before looking up at her. “I can leave after?” he says. “I can sleep, once it’s done?”

“Yes,” she says, “after I’m done treating it.”

“Can you get me tea?” he says. He pauses. “I don’t think I can get it myself.”

“No, boiling water is probably not a good idea,” she says. “We can get you tea as soon as we’re finished, Pumpkin.”

Levi doesn’t even react to the nickname. He looks up at Hange instead, a terribly open and scared expression.

“Look over at Erwin,” she says. “You can squeeze his hand.”

Levi’s cringe deepens a little more, goes sharper with fear. “I don’t want to see it again,” he says, his voice very low. For a second Erwin is confused, and then he realizes that Levi must have started hallucinating or otherwise remembering strongly something earlier. Erwin has to resist the urge to suck in a breath.

“You won’t,” Hange says evenly though. “Just look at Erwin. That’s all you’ll see. This will only take a moment.”

Levi starts breathing a little faster. Erwin takes a seat next to Levi, and Levi turns towards him. Erwin offers his hand, and Levi grips it weakly.

“Can I see your wrist, Levi?” Hange says.

Levi cringes, and slowly raises his arm, resting it on Hange’s desk. She takes his hand carefully and Levi squeezes his eyes shut.

“Breathe deeply,” Erwin says, “Just breathe, Levi, it’ll be done in a moment.”

“Deep breath,” Hange says.

Levi takes one. She wipes down the wound. Levi lets out a gasp and squeezes tightly on Erwin’s hand, his eyes opening wide. It takes Hange a few moments to finish dabbing along it, but it’s still over quickly. Levi gasps and his hands tremble again. Tears rise to the corners of his eyes.

“You’re okay, it’s all done,” Erwin says.

Levi makes a hiccupping noise and draws his hand back in. He’s breathing hard, cringing. He lets go of Erwin’s hand to rub over his wrist, holding it protectively in at his side. His eyes dart.

“It’s okay, it’s over,” Erwin says. “You’re at the survey corps, in Hange’s office. You’re not hurt badly.”

Levi settles a bit, his breathing slowing, muscles relaxing again. After a minute Hange asks to see his hand again. Levi tenses and shakes his head. “I want…” he starts. He swallows. “I want to sleep now.”

“You can sleep as soon as I’m finished,” Hange says.

“It’s just the stitching now,” Erwin says. “It won’t take long.”

Levi shakes his head and looks down. “Don’t touch,” he says, almost mumbled.

“We can wait a minute, but try to take some deeper breaths, okay, Levi?” Erwin says.

Erwin spends the next couple minutes trying to coax Levi into relaxing, but Levi seems to mostly ignore him, or rather it’s almost like he can’t concentrate on Erwin, unable to focus. Hange asks for his hand again. Eventually he acquiesces.

“Look at Erwin,” Hange says, and Levi does.

She inserts the threaded needle, as Erwin keeps his eyes on Levi, holding his free hand. The second she starts he tenses.

And then Erwin watches as all at once Levi’s eyes glaze over and his hand goes limp and clammy in his. His shoulders go rigid though, and he breaks out in tremors.

His eyes stay completely vacant, like he’s not seeing Erwin at all, staring right through him. He shakes so much that Hange flattens his hand against the desk to keep it still. Erwin frowns and gives Levi’s hand a squeeze. He doesn’t respond.

“Levi?” Erwin says. He gives Levi’s hand another gentle squeeze. “I’m right here,” he says. “You’re okay. It’s only Hange with the stitches.”

Levi doesn’t respond. He’s not hyperventilating anymore but his breathing has gone shallow. He’s pale. It looks almost like he’s in shock. Despite the tense look of his shoulders and the shaking, his hand is limp in Erwin’s.

Erwin glances worriedly at Hange, but she has her head down, intently placing stitches.

“Hange,” Erwin says quietly.

“Let me finish it,” she says. “It’ll be better to just get it done.”

So Erwin talks to Levi, repeats that it’s okay, that he’s safe, that they’re at the Survey Corps. He’s worried at first that Levi is hallucinating, seeing something, but then decides it’s unlikely. He doesn’t look panicked so much as frozen, and he’s never reacted this way before when he’s gotten trapped in a memory. Erwin’s not sure he’s ever seen Levi look like this before.

Hange finishes. Erwin rubs Levi’s shoulder, and both he and Hange talk to him until Levi starts coming out of it, starts to look more himself, become more aware. At first he just looks confused, but that settles quickly as he glances down at his bandaged hand and wrist.

“I want to leave,” he says abruptly, and then stands.

Erwin gets tea while Hange walks Levi back to his room, but by the time Erwin gets there, he’s already asleep. Hange looks at him grimly.

“Let’s talk later,” Erwin says. He’s exhausted, and frankly just doesn’t feel up to dealing with this further at that moment. There's a heavy dread going through his bones, very aware that when Levi wakes up there's going to be a difficult conversation waiting for him. Erwin's not sure what to bring up first, that Levi’s going to need the wound cleaned for the next couple days, possibly with alcohol again, or the now explicit threat to kill himself. He’s sure Levi’s going to be terrified by the former and dismissive of the latter. Erwin exhales. “I’m going to wait here until he wakes up," he says.

Hange sighs and nods. She pats him on the shoulder as she leaves. And so Erwin finds himself sleeping in Levi’s chair, once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've officially given up on chapter caps for my stories and resigned myself to the fact that I really have no idea how long these things are going to be.
> 
> Also, apologies for this chapter taking so long. I never intended for this story to be longer than a couple chapters, so it's been taking me a bit to figure out what the plan moving forward will be. Expect things to get worse before they get better, so please watch the tags - though hopefully Levi's going to start developing some better coping mechanisms soon. 
> 
> I do intend this to be an Erwin x Levi story, but I make no promises on how long it will take to get there. If you've read Splinter, then you know my slow burns tend to drag out forever.
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading and please let me know your thoughts! Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd really love to know what you thought of the story and comments completely make my day if you want to let me know your thoughts :) Hope you enjoyed.


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